{"id":1590,"date":"2016-08-31T21:58:18","date_gmt":"2016-09-01T04:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pyriformpress.com\/ellenredbird\/?page_id=1590"},"modified":"2023-08-24T19:39:26","modified_gmt":"2023-08-25T02:39:26","slug":"your-occasional-butterfly-internet-negativity-collage","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/pyriformpress.com\/ellenredbird\/projects\/your-occasional-butterfly-internet-negativity-collage\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Occasional Butterfly Internet Negativity Collage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Your Occasional Butterfly Internet Negativity Collage
\n<\/strong>by Ellen Redbird<\/p>\n

Statement<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Your Occasional Butterfly Internet Negativity Collage” is a series of poems with images. Each poem is a collage of negative comments I extracted from blogs and social networking sites on the internet. I had already painted many paper butterflies for an unrelated project, and I decided to repurpose images of the butterflies as companions to the poems.<\/p>\n

What value is in the negative comments we write? What misunderstandings or damage do they cause? Do we contradict ourselves? Why do we feel we can share our harshest opinions online? How do we cope with the toxicity of reading comments of scorn or hate? Can the humor that occurs in cut-up collage reveal something we didn’t see before or help us cope with, or be compassionate toward, human fallibility?<\/p>\n

I hope that bringing together different comments to be read in one poem will have the interactive effect of helping us re-examine how we choose our words. I envision each butterfly presenting itself in bright contrast to the collage of negative comments, thus acting as a catalyst for seeing those comments in multiple ways, i.e. performing its power as a symbol of transformation.<\/p>\n

I don’t know what the effect of posting these poems will be. However, don’t they say that when a butterfly is posted on one website, it causes a hurricane of reposts and response across the blogosphere? Or at least one “like” from your best friend on fbk.<\/p>\n

\n

Posts<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\r\n
\r\n \r\n\t\tYour Occasional Butterfly Internet Negativity Collage #3: Pride and Prejudice\t<\/a>\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n
\r\n\t
\r\n\t\t<\/a>\n

\"ButterflyforCollagePoem3\"<\/p>\n

Your Occasional Butterfly Internet Negativity Collage #3: Pride and Prejudice<\/strong>
\nby Ellen Redbird<\/p>\n

I’m sorry, but I don’t get the fuss.
\nWhy this book is so highly treasured by society is beyond me.
\nThe plot would have been better if it wasn’t
\n200 years old and so well worn.
\nI don’t really like stories that take place in the past.
\nIt could have been told in about 8 pages.
\nThere is barely a story to the story, just
\nmind-numbing balls and dinner parties and
\ncharacters like wispy shadows. I hate genteel poverty!
\nAll the characters did was wait around to get married and go for walks.
\nNothing happens! They just visit each other all the time.
\nNo one grows or changes.
\nIt’s old people gossiping
\nand conditioning women to like jerks.
\nA narrow, unrealistic vision of life.
\nWhat about this goes beyond a simple love story?
\nThe characterization has been used too many times since.
\nI have never witnessed so many intelligible people act so unintelligent.
\nWho uses the word “vexation” in a conversation?
\nDid they use those words in everyday conversation in 19th century England?
\nI am truly vexed as to how this novel became such a classic.<\/p>\n

If you like lots of drama, this is for you.
\nLots of drama, and nothing interesting at all.
\nIt’s the only book in high school I couldn’t finish.
\nEating sand for lunch every day would have been
\neasier than reading every single page of this book.
\nTried to force myself to read it, but the plot
\nfelt so cringy and superficial.
\nI couldn’t get over the soap opera mentality.
\nIn the modern era, I feel like this would have been
\nan episode of As The World Turns<\/em>.
\nPretty much a shot-for-shot rip-off
\nof West Side Story<\/em>\u2014just based in the early 1800s.
\nI am sitting here eating a Tootsie Roll, a Halloween leftover,
\nand I can’t help notice the similarities between it and the novel.<\/p>\n

This book is quite possibly the most poorly written,
\ninsipid, saccharine one I have ever read in my life.
\nSo stilted and slow and sappy, it makes my teeth HURT.
\nI didn’t understand a thing they were saying.
\nThe writing style was too descriptive and led me
\nmore than once to skip over entire paragraphs.
\nTedious, shallow, uninspiring, worthless babble from beginning to end.
\nIf there’s one thing I dislike, it’s lack of description.
\nI find it virtually impossible to read a book when
\nI know nothing of what the characters look like.<\/p>\n

Girl books aren’t generally my thing.
\nThis is a snore\u2014erotic imaginings of an untampered womb.
\nThis isn\u2019t meant as an indictment of women, but it is almost
\ncertainly enjoyed by so many women because it appeals
\nto their baser appetites such as the ego
\nand encourages some prevalent forms of wishful thinking.
\nI just don’t care about women
\nand their intense desires to get married.<\/p>\n

Turgid nonsense.
\nDeadly, endless.
\nI’m just glad it’s over.
\nDo not read this while operating heavy machinery.
\nDon’t read Moby Dick<\/em> either, if you know what’s good for you.
\nTo tell you the truth, I read this because I have
\nPride and Prejudice and Zombies<\/em>
\nsitting on my shelf ready to go.
\nI think the only reason this novel is even considered a treasure
\nis because it survived a large fire.<\/p>\n

…<\/span><\/p>\n

See Statement<\/a> for more about the series.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\t<\/div>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n
\r\n
\r\n \r\n\t\tYour Occasional Butterfly Internet Negativity Collage #2: I’m Not a Misogynist\u2014She Will Say Anything\t<\/a>\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n
\r\n\t
\r\n\t\t<\/a>\n

\"ButterflyforCollagePoem2\"<\/p>\n

Your Occasional Butterfly Internet Negativity Collage #2: I’m Not a Misogynist\u2014She Will Say Anything<\/strong>
\nby Ellen Redbird<\/p>\n

She will say anything you want to hear.
\nThese feminists are getting out of hand.
\nShut up, woman.
\nMere facts are irrelevant to her.
\nHer brain is permanently short-circuited by intentions.
\nShe is ill.
\nThe essence of being a woman is having the ability to bear a child.
\nShe is unfit.
\nAnd carry all the burdens in taking care of the household.
\nShe had several abortions.
\nTurned into a right little attention seeker, hasn’t she?
\nShe is emotionally disturbed and dangerous.
\nEmotional woman, zero common sense.
\nI have no idea why people don’t see that? It’s so obvious it makes me sick.
\nSomething is seriously wrong with her.
\nHer psychopathic nature.
\nI don’t have any issues with a woman president as long as she is past PMS.
\nShe will most likely not live long enough.<\/p>\n

Go home, lady.
\nWe don’t need her.
\nIt’s intentionally sexist and funny! So what?
\nShe’s a joke.
\nNo girl or woman should look up to her.
\nNo one believes her.
\nI couldn’t imagine anybody supporting her.
\nShe has created nothing in her life.
\nI will sign every petition that calls for her indictment.
\nWhat is she so afraid of?
\nHer failures.<\/p>\n

This lady is corrupt.
\nI can’t think of one good thing I like about her.
\nShe has zero integrity.
\nI didn’t hear anything vile or sexist.
\nShe represents what is wrong.
\nI heard nothing sexist whatsoever.
\nOnly in it for herself.
\nGet over yourselves.
\nShe is the queen of narcissism.
\nIf he is sexist, that’s his wife’s problem!
\nShe had to pay them to cheer for her.
\nI watched and made my own sandwich. How can that be sexist?<\/p>\n

She is a despicable, lying weasel.
\nTraitorous, murderous, hypocritical, washed-up,
\nugly, old hag of a has-been.
\nWe all get picked on. It’s a part of life.
\nShe is character-less.
\nLike so many, she is searching for things to be offended by.
\nShe is desperate.<\/p>\n

She hasn’t worked hard in decades.
\nThen she should look for a job that suits her, out of the public view.
\nShe wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity to make a buck.
\nWomen don’t want equal rights; they just want what we have.
\nShe works so hard because she knows you can be her slaves.
\nThere is no such thing as a wage gap.
\nI would say she screwed her way to the top, but no one would touch her.
\nI don’t think anything but a monkey would whistle at it.
\nShe is a puppet.
\nPlaying the victim card.
\nShe’s a troll.
\nJust because you see this as sexist, doesn’t make it so.
\nShe will eat your young to get ahead and have more power.
\nStop demonizing men.
\nShe wants to control us.
\nLock her up.
\nKeep her out.<\/p>\n

Look around, there are plenty of reasons to dislike this woman.
\nDumb-ass feminists\u2026”sexist” this, “sexist” that, bullshit.
\nShe is vulgar.
\nIf you like her, you must be ignorant.
\nNo wonder they say feminism has lost its meaning!
\nShe is teaching children how to cheat and steal.
\nThere are certain things that men statistically do better than women.
\nShe is going to put your family in the poor house.
\nWe live in a society of constantly offended cry babies.
\nShe is teaching our kids it’s okay if someone rapes them.
\nWomen are extremely emotional; they think with their hearts.
\nShe has had a life that screamed from one scandal to another.
\nFeminists are always digging for anything they can call sexism.
\nShe will ruin us
\nif given the opportunity.<\/p>\n

Does your tongue bleed when you speak?
\nNothing more advantageous than a woman’s sexuality.
\nThis snake, she needs to go to prison.
\nHer body is a weapon.
\nShe sold her soul.
\nHow does she face God every day?
\nShe’s a disgusting excuse for a person.
\nShe is the biggest failure of God in the world.
\nEverybody loves to jump on board the victim train.
\nThe witch destroyed millions.
\nEverybody loves to jump on board the victim train.
\nShe is the final nail in the coffin.
\nI can’t stand watching her.
\nShe is not who she says she is.
\nYou believe everything you read on the Internet?
\nShe will say anything and change nothing.<\/p>\n

…<\/span><\/p>\n

See Statement<\/a> for more about the series.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\t<\/div>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n
\r\n
\r\n \r\n\t\tYour Occasional Butterfly Internet Negativity Collage #1: Botanic Garden\t<\/a>\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n
\r\n\t
\r\n\t\t<\/a>\n

\"ButterflyforCollagePoem1bright\"<\/p>\n

Your Occasional Butterfly Internet Negativity Collage #1: Botanic Garden
\n<\/strong>by Ellen Redbird<\/p>\n

Overall, there’s just nothing much\u2014
\na brown, barren, boring canyon or
\nan overgrown, under-tended backyard.
\nIt’s basically a few paths in woods and a dried-out river bed\u2014
\nno water flowing\u2014just rocks, twigs, bugs, etc.
\nAnd there aren’t even any flowers!
\nIt’s like any place in the valley, with grass and a bunch of other plants
\nthat are not exotic in any shape or form.
\nJust native Californian plants.
\nMost of the flowers can be found on any California hillside.
\nIf you wanna see weeds and chill with old folks,
\nif you wanna get really tired on a mile-long hike (I did it in flip-flops),
\nand if you’re local to the area, I suppose it’s ok.
\nI’m not really a fan of flowers.<\/p>\n

For the price I paid to get in, I am disappointed
\nit only took an hour to finish everything.
\nIt’s not even a long walk.
\nThere is nothing to look at.
\nNot only is there no one, even the flowers are dead.
\nI am telling you we walked for two miles,
\naround and around,
\nlooking for something alive.
\nThere are a lot of rich people in the area\u2014ask them for support!<\/p>\n

I don’t know if it was just a bad time of year for gardens,
\nbut this place was dead, literally.
\nEven in drought you can recycle water for a beautiful garden.
\nI don’t know why people are impressed by this,
\nbut maybe they aren’t outdoorists and don’t get out much.
\nIf you are not from here,
\nthen I suppose you will like this place.<\/p>\n

Need some shopping therapy after the let-down of the garden?
\nThis place should be free.
\nThere was no one at the entrance so we just walked right in,
\nbut then the path becomes unpaved with
\nroots and stones sticking out in all directions.
\nIt’s the biggest waste of $10 in your life.
\nMaybe I’m just jaded, but
\nI slipped a lot of times…which I didn’t expect would happen.
\nMy experience was very underwhelming!
\nThe walk here is like a troll in a forest at best.<\/p>\n

This institution cries out for a benefactor.
\nIt’s more dirt than anything else, and full
\nof couples making out, holding hands.
\nDon’t expect anything even near photogenic.
\nThere is nothing really special that makes it memorable
\nexcept majestic redwoods and a large boulder for taking some great photos.
\nI went there looking for some ideas but found none.<\/p>\n

Nothing about this park is anything close to botanic.
\nThey should look up the meaning of the word, seriously.
\nBotanic garden<\/em> is false advertisement,
\na prevalent issue in our consumerist world.
\nIt is NOT the same botanic garden I grazed upon
\nin the website photos\u2014apparently
\neven natural beauties like botanic gardens
\nfall victim to being presented in a false light.<\/p>\n

…<\/span><\/p>\n

See Statement<\/a> for more about the series.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p><\/div>\t<\/div>\r\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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