It’s not bad.
IMO.
Especially if it was a rough draft.
By a 20ish year old. (obviously we don’t know that for sure.)
Get past the macabre subject matter, I would say it shows a bit of talent. I’m not sure that it’s publishable level. Not saying that Zodiac was set to be the new Keats. But if you were in a freshman creative writing class, it would stand out.
I say that, because I keep seeing semi-literate killers being proposed as the writer and/or Z. Or Ted Kaczynski, who it seems to me was extremely left-brained scientific.
Ted K. was a smart guy. He was very good at that dry, technical writing style, very left-brained writing style. But if you go to the TK forum and look at some of the writing there, you’ll come across a fictional scenario describing life after the technological collapse. And it’s terrible.
TK has a lot of bull’s eyes for Z. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be him.But I have a near-impossible time imagining him writing this poem. I write professionally for other people, and I realize how bad even smart people are at writing.
I didn’t mean to turn this into an anti-TK post. But I think the comparison is useful. And my point is that writing talent seems to me to be an important factor in this. At least to me.
Yeah, TK going down to Riverside to write that poem on a desk doesn’t sound very plausible to me.
As for the poem being "not bad" I have to disagree there. Sounds like something a depressed 13 year old girl would write to me. Especially in the 60’s when it was probably more popular for teens to be writing poetry.
Eh, IMHO the poem is OK. It’s very stream of consciousness imo which was big among the beat poets. Seems like someone who has interest maybe in that transcendental stream of consciousness beat poet stuff. Then again maybe the stream of consciousness element is because the author wasn’t acting from a entirely "conscious" place. The cadence and emphasis on some words over others according to punctuation seems as if it is meant to be dictated out loud as well. They are very illustrative words the author used – almost like it’s coming from an emotional/fantastical place. As if it’s a daydream. One thing I think imo is whoever wrote it was emotionally/socially abnormal at the time to put something so creepy on a desk after a tragic campus murder.
One thing I think imo is whoever wrote it was emotionally/socially abnormal at the time to put something so creepy on a desk after a tragic campus murder.
There is nothing which positively indicates that it was written after the murder.
As for the poem being "not bad" I have to disagree there. Sounds like something a depressed 13 year old girl would write to me. Especially in the 60’s when it was probably more popular for teens to be writing poetry.
Agreed.
One thing I think imo is whoever wrote it was emotionally/socially abnormal at the time to put something so creepy on a desk after a tragic campus murder.
There is nothing which positively indicates that it was written after the murder.
As for the poem being "not bad" I have to disagree there. Sounds like something a depressed 13 year old girl would write to me. Especially in the 60’s when it was probably more popular for teens to be writing poetry.
Agreed.
Well, we know adults wrote Poetry too, including a couple different Z suspects,including one that was in that same library
There is more than one way to lose your life to a killer
http://www.zodiackillersite.com/
http://zodiackillersite.blogspot.com/
https://twitter.com/Morf13ZKS
Well, we know adults wrote Poetry too, including a couple different Z suspects,including one that was in that same library
I was referring to the quality of the work. I don’t think it was literally written by a 13 year old – the odds are clearly heavily against that given where it was found.
Well, we know adults wrote Poetry too, including a couple different Z suspects,including one that was in that same library
I was referring to the quality of the work. I don’t think it was literally written by a 13 year old – the odds are clearly heavily against that given where it was found.
Okay, gotcha. Some people think their poetry is good,even if it’s not. Personally, I am not a poetry fan at all,so for me it’s all bad
There is more than one way to lose your life to a killer
http://www.zodiackillersite.com/
http://zodiackillersite.blogspot.com/
https://twitter.com/Morf13ZKS
I think the poem was therapy for a severely disturbed individual. It was couched as poetry so as to deceive both the author and readers into thinking the subject matter was artistic, rather than realistic. Unacceptable, and homicidal, thoughts were surfacing in the author’s consciousness, and had to be dealt with somehow. Unfortunately, the author didn’t seek professional treatment, and attempted self-cure via (perhaps among other things) writing "poetry". Further, the poem was written before Cheri’s murder, not afterward. Had it been written afterward, there would either have been no signature initials; or, if there were the poem would have been written on top of the desk, for easy discovery, and the initials not the author’s, but those of an LE suspect, or someone the author wished suspected.
