Bad Poets and Philos converged in Rennert Hall Thursday night for the Philolexian Society's 22nd Annual Joyce Kilmer Memorial Bad Poetry Festival. We'll introduce this story by borrowing a line from one of this year's winning poems. "Poetry is like sausage. [...] Some say it is best, for fullest enjoyment, not to know how our poems are prepared."

Lousy limericks and the poorest of prose echoed on Thursday, as hundreds of Columbia students and alumni crowded in the Kraft Center for the Philolexian Society's 22nd Annual Joyce Kilmer Memorial Poetry Festival.

The contest is named after a man who was once a Philolexian Society vice president and the author after the author of the poem Trees. The Poetry festival is a celebration of bad or maybe good poetry.

Many students who entered the competition have been writing poetry for years, and used this opportunity to share work inspired from many sources.

Spanish Class: (Spewing self-righteous consumer consciousness into the face of capitalism)

Love: (Oh, oh, oh, oh!)

And even hip-hop superstars Rhianna and Jay-Z: (Rhianna and Jay-Z's "Umbrella" in Latin)

Rob Frawley, CC'10: Well, that's one thing that I like about this contest is that anything can inspire it. And actually just a LitHum reading was my inspiration for one poem, and the other poem was just a stream of consciousness)

English and History faculty members judged the contest, and picked the winner - GS student Amitai Schlair, who cleverly compared poetry to sausage.

Avitai Schlair, GS' 09: Poetry is like sausage. Venison villenelles, saucissons sestinas, braunschawger ballads, kielbasa couplets, pure pork pastorals.

Schlair and other runner-ups will be published in Philolexian?s journal, the Surgam Literary Magazine.