We recently challenged our Poet Laureate, Elder JimZim, to apply his talents to the word “cuboidal” (a reference to the shape of certain varieties of yak cheese).
As a romantic versifier and belletrist, he delivered this thing of beauty:
There once was an office worker named Willow
She toiled all day with her workers at Zillow
They perched in spaces that were somewhat Cuboidal
Unfortunately, this prolonged sitting made her bum Hemorrhoidal
But she found comfort sitting on a Pillow
- Elder JimZim
Elder G recently had an article published in The Journal of WLBOTT Literary Studies that deconstructions Elder JimZim’s work.
Cuboidal Consciousness: Spatial Alienation and the Hemorrhoidal Sublime in the Early JimZim Canon
Few contemporary poets have demonstrated Elder JimZim’s fearless willingness to collapse the traditional boundary separating corporate architecture from corporeal suffering. At first glance, the seemingly innocuous adjective cuboidal functions merely as a geometric descriptor of the modern office environment. Such a reading, however, overlooks the poet’s deeper project. The cuboid emerges as a metaphorical prison, reducing the boundless human spirit to rectilinear confinement while simultaneously evoking the Platonic tension between ideal forms and the decidedly non-ideal realities of prolonged sedentary employment. The unexpected juxtaposition of “Zillow” and “cuboidal” subtly interrogates late-capitalist conceptions of domesticity: the corporation traffics in homes, yet its employees inhabit only standardized geometric cells. This irony is almost certainly intentional.
The poem’s startling pivot to hemorrhoidal affliction has been dismissed by some critics as mere bathroom humor, but such assessments fail to appreciate JimZim’s profound exploration of embodiment. The speaker reminds us that no philosophy of labor can remain purely abstract; eventually, every economic system is judged by the condition of the posterior. The concluding appearance of the pillow has frequently been interpreted as a simple comic resolution. A more sophisticated reading identifies it as an unmistakable symbol of restorative grace, transforming an ordinary household object into an instrument of existential reconciliation. In this sense, the pillow occupies the same literary space as Dante’s Beatific Vision, although admittedly with greater lumbar support. Whether JimZim consciously intended these multilayered meanings remains irrelevant. As with all great poetry, the text ultimately understands itself better than its author.
The Journal of WLBOTT Literary Studies
In addition to the stir created in literary circles, the Medieval Studies department has shown interest.
…. as well as the anthropology department.
We have some additional contemporary, cultural, and historical renderings.
