ColleaguePoetry

Some people tend to send epic emails (I am guilty of this), and some people send characteristic emails that might as well be text messages, even if they type the message using a full-sized keyboard. At the moment, I am most entertained by the terse text-emails.

I have seen some of these emails recently, both from people who only send this type of email. These messages read almost like a strange form of poetry, although they don't seem to follow any obvious rules about number of lines or syllables.

I can't include the exact emails of course, but I can create my own versions that try to capture their essence. I hope that some readers will consider this a creative writing challenge and provide their own versions of terse academic-emails one might receive from colleagues (or students!).

I call this first email-poem: "I want to send you random out-of-context information about myself"

Check out this link.
It mentions me.
This topic is important.

And this one, which is a bit longer, is entitled: "I want you do something for me (guess what it is)"

We need to write another proposal.
It should be mostly [method].
We need to do this soon.
Someone else will do it if we don't.
We are the best ones to do it.
This is urgent.
The program director hates me.


Isn't that beautiful, in a way?