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What is the Shortest Poem?
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CEFR Level
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Subtitles (132 segments)
Hey, Vsauce. Michael here. I am in Green Bank,
West Virginia. Pocahontas County. And my favorite word
is ...
I learned it from Big Bird and it's not so much a word
as the alphabet, if you try to pronounce it
like a word. It's a neat trick, almost poetic.
But what counts as poetry? How short can something be and still be
a poem? What is the shortest poem
in the world and why does knowing it
matter?
Okay, now I am in Charlottesville, Virginia
in a hotel room. I'm on the road this week.
Take a look at my amazingly fancy
set up. A popular contender for the shortest
story in the world is apocryphally
attributed to Ernest Hemingway. It contains only six
words. "For sale. Baby shoes.
Never worn." A popular contender for the title of world's
shortest poem and the one honored at WorldsShortestPoem.com
is a clever couplet attributed to Strickland
Gillilan, titled "on the Antiquity
of Microbes" or sometimes just
"Fleas". It goes like this: " 'Fleas' /
Adam / Had 'em" But shorter
rhyming couplets are possible. Gyles Brandreth
wrote the very cute "Ode to a Goldfish."
"Oh, wet / pet"
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