About

"i lik the bred" is a series of short poems about a domesticated cow written by British author Sam Garland,^[8] better known by his Reddit handle Poem_for_your_sprog,^[9] in response to a storytime thread about the worst code violations that public health inspectors have seen while on the job. Due to the abundance of absurdism and misspellings of words in the text, Garland's poem has been widely celebrated and parodied on Reddit and Tumblr since October 2016.

Origin

On October 25th, 2016, a now-deactivated Redditor began a new storytime post on /r/AskReddit, asking the "health inspectors of Reddit" to share their stories about the worst code violations they have seen on the job. In response to the thread, Redditor Chamale^[1] told a story about his step father working as a baker in an authentic 18th century recreation of a New French fortress. After convincing the health inspector that the kitchen was as health-conscious as possible without sacrificing the integrity of the 18th-century recreation, the inspector spotted a cow roaming around the fortress and licking all the bread. Redditor poem_for_your_sprog, whose gimmick is to respond to comments by turning their content into poems, wrote a poem^[2] in response to the story (shown below). The comment gained over 15,000 points (90% upvoted) prior to being archived.

my name is Cow,
and wen its nite,
or wen the moon
is shiyning brite,
and all the men
haf gon to bed -
i stay up late.
i lik the bred.

Spread

Garland's poem became an instant hit on /r/poem_for_your_sprog^[3], a fan-made subreddit devoted to his poems launched in December 2013, as well as among other alt-lit and poetry-related circles on Reddit and Tumblr. On the day Garland posted the poem on Reddit, Tumblr user phantomrose96^[5] posted a screenshot of the poem, which gained more than 127,000 notes within three months.

In the following months, ironic appreciation for Garland's poem continued to gain momentum on Tumblr, inspiring many parodies, artworks and other works of tribute.^[6] On November 13th, 2016, Soundcloud artist Hindulaatti uploaded a song^[4] with lyrics borrowed from various poems by Redditor poem_for_your_sprog, including "i lik the bred," sung in doggo speak.

On January 17th, 2017, Tumblr user Sashayed^[7] posted one of the most popular parodies of the original poem in which the cow licks cats instead of bread, accruing more than 17,000 notes in less than 48 hours.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References