I Can’t Write Poems I’m not very good at writing poems I always get stuck, and end up going on, for hours and hours, and hours, about something that isn’t funny, or good, or even interesting, and when I hand it in, I get a D grade or an E grade. Or an F grade.
Except you can’t get Fs.
The lowest is E.
I told you I’m not very good. See?
Martin Rowntree
By Martin Rowntree, year 9, who receives Penguin Modern Poets 1. Submitted by Pat Sumpter of Burnside Community High School, Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, who receives the Poetry Society teachers’ newsletter, a quarterly bulletin which includes features on innovative approaches to poetry in the classroom. For Poetry Society events, ring 0171 240 4810.
The self-disparaging joke poem has had many practitioners in recent times. Here’s an amusing example; I like the fact that though it seems slap dash, it does in fact have quite a purposeful structure, and a cunningly placed late rhyme to clinch the joke.