Freelance job boards are full of writing gigs these days for website ‘articles’ to be written around specific keywords provided by the client. No wonder it takes so much work to find meaningful material on the web, most of it is being created for the search engine as the primary audience instead of the reader.  But I’m sympathetic too, I wait and wonder what Adsense will do with my personal vocabulary.  So,  instead of writing something even I don’t want to read in order to create the most appropriate keyword profile for this site, I’d like to propose that search engine optimization explore the sestina.

The sestina is a 12th-century form of poetry developed in the French court that mathematically repeats six key words.  I don’t know why this wouldn’t work for search engines and I hope it’s much more entertaining for readers.   Please share your thoughts in the comments!

The Nurdle Net Sestina

Could there be a better word than nurdle
To represent a site that seeks the unconventional,
Odd and intriguingly offbeat?
Or to create a community of nonconformists,
Not seeking anarchy but reveling in the quirky
And above all, joyful entertainment?

There are many types of entertainment
But a consistent thread in those that nurdle
That could in part be described as quirky
As one might call the gadgets unconventional
Or refer to the people as nonconformist
Or attempt to label all as offbeat

Yet it is not enough to be merely offbeat
And there is a myriad of online entertainment
Even for those that profess to be nonconformist
But surely there is joy in joining nurdle
In a way that even bloggers would label unconventional
Or for want of a specific term, quirky

The woman that wears a dress with motorcycle boots may be quirky
And the man who tattoos his face offbeat
They are both certainly unconventional
But only the narrow-minded would find that entertainment
Which is not the spirit of nurdle
That would rather celebrate the explorer in each nonconformist

Is it nature or nurture that creates a nonconformist?
Does growing up destroy our interest in the quirky?
These are not the questions of those that nurdle
Who would rather seek answers both nifty and offbeat
Even academic questions can be a source of entertainment
Such as ‘is it possible to have a convention of the unconventional?’

It can be difficult to mass market the unconventional
Or target advertising to a nonconformist
But what could provide more entertainment
Than the challenge of blogging about the quirky
In hopes of finding other people who appreciate being offbeat
To the point that they intuitively know how to nurdle

And so this site seeks to provide entertainment to those that favor things more unconventional
And to evangelize the word nurdle until it sorts the conventional nonconformist
From those that appreciate quirky  and leads to a new definition of offbeat

Info and instructions to write your own sestina can be found here:  http://www.baymoon.com/~ariadne/form/sestina.htm