These past few days I have sent a couple of those electronic birthday cards to people. No, not the cards that play "Kumbaya" when you open them: I am referring, of course, to the ever-present e-cards. These are cards sent over the Internet to someone when you've forgotten their birthday until the last minute but you still want to let them know that you care somewhat.
In these cards, as well as physical, paper cards, there is an alarming trend of faux-poetry. You know the type:
On this day of birthday joy,
Whether you're a girl or a boy,
You should know I care about you a lot,
So Happy Birthday, you big snot!
These days, you can't find a card anywhere that doesn't have some kind of smarmy four-lined couplet that makes uncreative use of rhymes such as "day" and "way," or "do" and "you". I wonder what kind of hack writers are behind these horribly maimed examples of anti-prose. Surely these are not the Robert Brownings and Walt Whitmans of our generation?
Perhaps the way that most people deal with these aborted poetic fetuses is to simply ignore them, and to send on the card for the picture of flowers or birds on the cover instead, for after all, we Americans are a visual people. (Observe the popularity of Britney Spears.) And as receivers of these cards, we assume that the twisted wreck of birthday greetings does not in fact belong to the sender, but was accidentally put on there by the card manufacturers.
As for the e-cards, the big "attraction" is that they have some sort of animated feature, such as crudely drawn amphibians bearing the legend "Oops, didn't mean to froget your birthday" (as if these heralds of stunted puns could actually shield the absent-minded sender from the wrath of the receiver). This sort of lame wit pervades most of the animations. The receivers of the cards are apparently supposed to contort with laughter at the sophomoric humor behind rabbits and a "hopping good birthday."
However, what is going on here on a deeper level? (For I am always digging under the idyllic surface of society to expose the proverbial slugs underneath, such as one-ply toilet paper's pervasiveness.) What these giants behind sullied poetry and wince-inspiring 'toons are actually telling us is that we lack the creativity to express ourselves, and must resort to the devices they provide. Let's look at the inevitable four-line clunker on a card. Let's say it goes thus:
On this special occasion of fun,
You are the one,
To receive birthday messages profound,
And celebrate all year round!
Now, this birthday message is anything but "profound." It's trite, it's a piece of garbage. It talks about special occasions of fun. Well, what if the person isn't having fun? What if the receiver is sitting somewhere alone on his or her birthday and the only acknowledgment of their birthday they get is some dumb e-card? And why the hell would you celebrate "all year round"? You'd get to your birthday next year, and THEN what would you do?
And yet, it is assumed that we, as your average troglodytes, could not come up with something better, for otherwise there would not be a verse on the card. We could merely write our own. I, for one, being the partially inspired, creative being that I am, could certainly come up with a superior alternative than the garden variety day-way do-you simplistically rhymed trash we are supplied with. I'm sure most of you out there are capable, too. Right? You agree with me? Of course. You look at the typical card rhyme, and you say, "I could excrete better poetry!"
I think we on the whole are underappreciated for our creative powers. Given the proper inspiration, most people could produce poetry for a birthday card at least on the level of T.S. Eliot. (Anyone could beat that guy.) Let us stand up for our own powers of self-expression. We don't want the junk poems; we want to sing the music in our own souls, not that of a heartless corporate giant that makes a business out of manufacturing cards. Even if the final product was something short of John Donne, at least it would be genuine. At least it would not be created by some artless toadie whose idea of quality literature is anything that uses the words "birthday," "special," "love," "you," "wishing," "day" and "today" in large quantities.
Join me in saying a hearty screw you to Hallmark!
