The answer?
Brag.
It seems almost a universal habit that if you are a rapper and don't know what to rap about, you should start rapping about what a badass you are.
On the other hand (not that I've done much looking, but) poems where the narrator is the poet or poet's persona actively bragging about him- or herself seem relatively rare. There seems to be this idea that bragging is unseemly or dilutes the purity of the art.
I say screw that. Today, if any of you humor me, I challenge you to write (whatever genre and prose/poetry/script whatever) a piece bragging about or up-talking yourself. It doesn't have to feel true to you. You can adopt a persona that does feel this way about yourself, even if down at your core you truly don't. I encourage you to go over-the-top with this.
Have fun with it.
To inspire you, I leave you with Eminem, from GOAT (but really I could give you Eminem lyrics about how he's so great ALL DAYYYY, because that's how much he talks about it):
- I'm a goat
- and for those of y'all who don't know what a goat is
- it means the greatest of all time
- and I consider myself one of those
- so thank you very much, here it goes!
....
- I'm not sure how this is gonna come off
- they're probably gonna think that I'm coming off as cocky (haha)
- like I just started giving a fuck what you really think about me
- see, the thing about me
- is you don't really know a thing about me
- everyone's making a stink about me
- like there's some kind of a aura of that of the king around me
All I give a fuck about is Money and when I got it I don't give a fuck about it It's outlandish I take for granted what God granted My countertop granite, my house is outstanding While I'm standin inside of it feelin inside out as I pop Xanax Chasin that rabbit, but goddammit I'll rock your shit to the next planet. I'm the best you'll ever be And still goin Keep it three-hundred but fuck Romans That Kanye shit don't know how to spit Flow might be sound but lack of facts don't sit With me. But It's good only room for one on this throne So go home S'a no kids-zone Yeah this is off the dome But back the fuck up Or the only thing you'll be spittin is foam. what.Rumor has it I'm an underground king
Myehhh? 'Cause I'm wearing a hoodie Yeah I look like a lawman But I'm no goody-goody I represent my hometown Not reticent to throw down I'll beat you up like you're a freaking Pokemon--showdown. Man my intellectual capacity Exceeds Gandalf's sagacity And to top it all off I run this town with incredible tenacity Call this a rap or just call it some poetry But I know that I am the best: that I guarantee.Call me Houdini
The Fish by: Elizabeth Bishop with some minor editing I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of its mouth.
He didn’t fight, but if he had, I'd kick his ass.
He hadn’t fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper: Fucking pussy ass fish
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice, like some byatch
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
— the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly — Like how I will cut your pussy ass if you step to me byatch
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder (did you piss yourself, you pussy ass byatch?)
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare. -You best not return my stare punk! I'll cap your ass
— It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face, (but not in some queer man on fish way)
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
— if you could call it a lip —
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared (but not in a creepy way, yo)
and victory filled up
the little rented boat, cuz I'm the baddest motherfucker in this biznoat
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels — until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! (but not in like, a gay rainbow way, yo cuz I'm the shiznit and I fuck all the ladies)
And I let the fish go. (cuz I'm compassionate and shit, yo)
Here goes dudes! Take the bait. The Unsinkable Molly Brown Rock Goddess
This is the girl you won’t forget.
Men at bars ask her friends about her,
What her deal is, too afraid she’ll laugh
In their face to approach, walk up
And ask her for themselves.
She’ll take your man and dice him
Into jellyfish, leave him quivering
On the open floor and thankful
she even talked to him, that she
was kind.
And everyone knows her
From a distance. It’s her hair,
The untamed mass of it has crept
Its way from her shoulders
Down her back through the months
You’ve all watched her toss it back
And laugh, that irresistible laugh
that makes you want to ask her
what’s the joke but you’re afraid
you wouldn’t even get it,
if she condescended to acknowledge you,
and answer.
You’ve heard awesome rumors about her:
How she stood down a girl who’d slept
with her man until the girl broke
down and tried to fight anyone there
at the bar because Molly Brown wouldn’t
raise at any wheedle, lie or tear.
She was stone. You felt her
Holding court in public.
Her apathy was judgment.
You heard she ripped off
Some guy’s dick last August
When he took her to the creek
At the state park, drunk brunch
Staggering distance, and pushed
Her a little too hard in the water.
But no one knows for sure.
That’s the thing about this girl,
That drives you crazy, you and every man
Who saw her at home, cursing with her liquor:
So many insane stories whisper
Around her image but you’ve never seen her
Even stumble, slur her words.