Help me remember this weird poem

September 28, 2016 9:01 AM

I'm trying to recall a poem which was a long (book-length!) list of sentences that were exactly the same except each one contained a slightly different list of names. It was something like "in [name] [name] and [name] was [name]".

I'm a little hazy on the details but I'm recalling that this was considered a "found poem" - someone came across a publication of it and started spreading it around assuming it was some kind of odd document that happened to sound poetic when recited - until the poem's author got in touch and said "of course it was meant to be a poem!"

One of the names that appeared in the poem was definitely "God".

I might have seen this on the blue but tried looking under the poem and poetry tags and couldn't find it.

posted by capricorn to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

Huh. I'd always wondered where the Tortoise song "In Sarah, Mencken, Christ, And Beethoven There Were Women And Men" had gotten its name. Your Ask is why I now know the answer - it's a poem. Seems like the one you're looking for.
posted by BrunoLatourFanclub at 10:16 AM on September 28, 2016

What a fascinating story! For future reference, the author’s name is John Barton Wolgamot.
posted by languagehat at 10:59 AM on September 28, 2016

And here's the Metafilter post of which you may be thinking!
posted by everybody had matching towels at 12:52 PM on September 28, 2016

Yup that's the one! Thank you!
posted by capricorn at 1:00 PM on September 28, 2016