Grok, Grooks, and Groot
A Love Story in Aphoristic Poems
Sarah Scullin once used the phrase “I grok it now” to me over Facebook Messenger. “That’s a hell of a typo,” I thought as I asked her to clarify what the four-letter verb she had meant to type was. Love? Hate? Something totally inappropriate to say to your colleague?
“Grok,” for those of you who, like me, were born in the nineties or after, means “understand,” more or less. Sarah tried to help me out but typed “grook” into Wikipedia instead — which, as it turns out, is not nonsense!
Yes! A grook (or gruk) is a Danish aphoristic poem created by Piet Hein, who wrote more than seven thousand of them. On a barely related note, both “grok” and “groot” kind of sound like “Groot,” from Guardians of the Galaxy, the sequel to which you can now see in theaters.
So here are some of our favorite grooks, interspersed with gifs of Groot (but only Baby Groot, because that’s the one I like), and finally, a grook I wrote about grok, grooks, and Groot. Ya grok me?
It may be observed, in a general way,
that life would be better, distinctly
If more of the people with nothing to say
were able to say it succinctly
Knowing what
thou knowest not
is in a sense
omniscience.
Man’s a kind
of Missing Link,
fondly thinking
he can think.
This is my article on comparison in a nutshell:
No cow’s like a horse,
and no horse like a cow.
That’s one similarity
anyhow.
When people always
try to take
the very smallest
piece of cake
how can it also
always be
that that’s the one
that’s left for me?
Eidolon’s writing advice:
Long-winded writers I abhor,
and glib, prolific chatters;
give me the ones who tear and gnaw
their hair and pens to tatters:
who find their writing such a chore
they only write what matters.
TOO REAL:
Losing one glove is certainly painful,
but nothing compared to the pain,
of losing one, throwing away the other,
and finding the first one again.
Solutions to problems
are easy to find:
the problem’s a great
contribution.
What’s truly an art
is to wring from your mind
a problem to fit a solution.
Everything’s either
concave or convex,
so whatever you dream
will be something with sex.
And finally, my masterpiece:
LMGTFY: A Grook
In conveying understanding, Sarah wrote “grok”
I said her typing had run amok
She said on the Internet I should look
But then she accidentally Wiki’d “grook”
Then I erred too, and wrote “Groot”
The point of this poem? Completely moot.
Words like “grok,” “grook,” and “Groot” make Yung In Chae giggle, so please use them wisely around her.
