–by Gaven Li

 

Jordan King, one of our sophomores, wrote this interesting poem, “How to Be an Airline Company,” for a school assignment when he was in eighth grade. He brought it to Ms. Zachik’s attention during Poetry Recitation (as in “Can I recite my own poem?!”). We are happy to share his poem today–especially since he was voted Audience Favorite at Monday’s CSF-sponsored Poetry on the Green. CSF awarded Jordan a Starbucks Reward Card for his poetic inventiveness.

 

How to be an Airline Company

Delay flights–
Or Cancel them if you want.

Make everyone pay the price
And wait hours to get to their paradise.

Make leg-room the length of a worm;
Make money off of people’s misery.
Be the Kanye West of travel,

And don’t give a crap about your customers.
You’ve already been paid,
And still charge for every little thing
Passengers will be forced to buy anyway.

Charge another thousand to make everything just a little less uncomfortable
And you’ll get a glass of water.
People won’t have any other choice.

You’re the only criminal allowed on board,
Thank you, TSA.

Make sure there’s a re-booking center;
If you don’t have one, all your employees will probably quit.

Make the aisles look like walkways for pets
your customers will have to painfully dawdle down.

All that’s okay,
Because at the end of the day
Your paycheck will be as big as San José.

–Jordan King

 

About this poem: “I wrote the poem in 8th grade for a school assignment,” said Jordan. “The criteria for the poem was it had to be a ‘how to’ poem; it had to tell you how to do something. I made it a satirical poem which makes generalizations about airlines.” What made him write about the airline company? I asked. “I chose to write it about this because of my previous experience with American Airlines; they cancelled my flight. Today, I think it’s an OK poem; it’s funny and straight to the point. It’s just me complaining but in a somewhat poetic way.”

Thanks Jordan, great poem!