Sun-Sentinel Apparently Experimenting With Freestyle Jam Poetry In Column Inches

It's slam poetry, motherf**ker!

The Sun Sentinel, that bastion of muckrakery and insight, has now begun dabbling in what appears to be -- yes -- freestyle beat poetry about the tragic arc of the Christmas tree. Its merits aren't immediately discernible, because the poem hides among the column inches. Nonetheless, they're there. And we're here to say, Tina Susman of Tribune Newspapers, we like your style. And metaphor/rhyming scheme.

Here's a little taste of what ran in a Sun Sentinel issue earlier this week.

It's beginning to look a lot "holiday" tree, said many people like Christmas, that warmple are "not happy" with this and fuzzy time of year, year's tree-lighting. In addition, when adults engage in pub-to not being scheduled in adlic verbal brawls aboutvance, the event was not held whether to call Christmas in the evening, when more tree a Christmas tree.

My God. Who else needs some acid?

How it looked in print:

We like this innovative, deeply layered method of presenting news and often follow similar recourse: When in doubt, confuse the reader. But the Sentinel didn't take it far enough. There should have been more experimentation with cadence, and it missed an opportunity. It could have looked like this:

--It's beginning,
--To look a lot like
"holiday"
Tree.

Year's tree-lighting.
The event was not held.
Whether to call Christmas,
In the evening,
When more tree a Christmas tree.

We called the Sun Sentinel and asked what happened. They said there had been a layout mistake and told us they'd seen New Times make mistakes from time to time as well. (SHOCKER!!!)

Also, we were informed, this layout error was in no way "news," and we were "sophomoric" for writing a story about it.