This was inspired by one of the speakers in the mechanical engineering sophomore seminar and his claim that engineers write more than any other field, even novelists or journalists. One must pity the poor soul who has to read the disjointed and abundant scribblings of what is apparently the world’s most frequent writer: the engineer.
To the world I am known
As an engenere engeneer ingeneer
I’m good with math.
(And also rhyming, when I try.)
I think in calculus and physics,
and in that forbidden word,
my beloved statics
(and dynamics).
Computers and calculators,
complicated in their circuitry,
are my heart’s animators,
bread and butter to the soul.
You think I don’t read
and that I can’t write.
But I just read that plane’s speed,
and now I’m writing its position.
Not to mention my lab reports,
technical writing though they may be,
are quite the opposite of short.
(The writing fellow only helped a little.)
Faulkner, Woolf and Shakespeare,
some unknown and some ignored,
they are unneeded in my career.
Reading for high school English is no more.
It’s true that in my job,
someone checks over my writing.
Oftentimes they’re a snob,
boring and predictable in their grammar.
“Use an Oxford comma,”
they say, and well,
what if I don’t wanna?
Dead-eyed stares are my answer.
Red marks cover my explanations;
I ask my editor why.
They murmur something about limitations
and pat my shoulder on the way by.
Clearly, it is not true,
what they say about us engineers.
Our urge to write might be a bit subdued,
but we can be authors, too!
And for my final part,
I give you proof of what I know.
Here is a couple from my heart,
and it’s not made of parallel forces.
Engineers are said to be emotionless and math-oriented,
But our writing can still be loved and loud and tormented.
(Wait … it’s called a couplet?)