Beowimp (spoof I wrote for my high school lit magazine c. 1985)

I got an email this morning from someone who went to my high school a few years behind me… she is now a high school teacher, and had asked the lit magazine editor to dig up a spoof of Beowulf she remembered reading back in the day. I only barely remember writing it.

This excerpt pretty much tells it all:

Grendel snarled and lunged, his dark heart
Set on tracking more mud around the
Tables, and woe to the man who stood
In his way. But although the janitor was
A weenie, his heart burned at the sight of
Swamp mud on his floor…

The missing open quotation mark in line 38 bothers me, as does my rather indifferent use of assonance, but the setup and payoff of “get thee out of my way” made me laugh 30+ years later. I also wrote spoofs of The Waste Land and Dante’s Inferno. I don’t recall submitting any legit stuff, just spoofs.