After last week's foray into writing a musical, I thought I'd have a crack at writing poetry and I believe, so far, I'm nailing it.
I don't mean big, long, epic oeuvres that go on and on and are all about swashbuckling maniacs like Og the Horrible and theirruthless invasions in Nordic landscapes.
And I don't want to slave over poems in which you have to get hundreds of words to rhyme and in which you must ensure that the metre scans and all that sort of stuff. I'll leave that sort of work to poets like Beowulf.
Nor will I write of highwaymen and redcoats and maidens with extremely long hair which they dangle from turrets. And I won't do ostlers.
No, I mean to produce short, pithy poems that focus in on everyday delights or some of the foibles of mankind. Ogden Nash got away with "Parsley is gharsley" so I think I can get away with "I'll capture your foible as well as I'm oible".
I don't want to deal with subjects that have been overdone (daffodils, clouds, autumn and the like) because I'm trying to be a more modern poet. Perhaps urban is the right word. Contemporary. I'll even deal with the digital world.
I'll be bold and daring with some of my rhymes. I'll rhyme "Covid-19" with "pea-green latrine" and, because, according to experts, nothing rhymes with "orange", I'll just make up words.
I'll still make use of the poet's usual tools of the trade and my similes and metaphors will be vivid and original – far better than these real ones created by American school kids. I know you have probably read them but I feel they bear repeating:
He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.
Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6.36pm and travelling at 55mph and the other from Topeka at 4.19pm at a speed of 35mph.
Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
And I will employ onomatopoeia which will be original though I will steal one example because it's been a favourite all my life and I want it to live on. It comes from Mad Magazine cartoonist, Don Martin.
Wyn Drabble
The cartoon strip is set in a supermarket in which a canned product is stacked and balanced into one of those gravity-defying pyramids. The main character enters and selects a can from ... the bottom of ... the stack. Of course, the stack collapses and the noise it makes stretches right across the next cartoon panel in bold type:
Another Martin cartoon featuring Wonder Woman releasing her tight bra used PLOOBADOOF.
Also expect pops of personification, lots of alliteration and ample assemblages of assonance.
In my portfolio there will also be some limericks to lighten the mood. Here comes one now:
A putative poet called Wyn
Was trying to write a po-im
But try as he might
He couldn't get right
The last line because it had way too many syllables in it. So, I hope you will wish me well on this journey, this side-trip into the world of verse. I have to finish now because I'm bound by a word count so I'll close with a short verse to show I mean business.
Please don't be averse
To my taking up verse
It's something I just have to do.
So if while you're reading
You think I'm succeeding
I'll be ever indebted to you.
Please note, I am planning to tack a post script on to this poem. I'm currently thinking:
Orange.
• Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, musician and public speaker.
