Poetry Can Be Fun…Honest

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Today is National Poetry Day.  I was going to bring you some fun and interesting facts about poetry, but you know what?  There aren’t any.  Not on the internet, anyway.  Poetry is dull.

By the way, remember to check out my poetry blog, I’m Not A Verse.

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I did find a site called Poetry Fountain.  Under the heading ‘Interesting Facts’ it has these interesting facts:

• Starfish have no Brains.  I wonder if they write poetry?
• There is a species of ants that is found only in buildings in Washington, D.C.  It’s killing me not to make a joke about politicians here.
• The scientific name of a Boa Constrictor is Boa Constrictor.  Scientists don’t use metaphors?
• Diamonds are the hardest natural substance on earth.  Apart from me on National Share Your Maltesers Day.
• If you turn a shark on its back, it will fall asleep.  It must have been reading Wordsworth’s & Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads.  The same thing happens to me.
• Shakespeare was born and died on the same day (only many years apart).  Well, duh!  Whoever wrote that qualifying remark either thinks we’re all stupid or is an infant prodigy.  And it is only suspected that Shakespeare was born on that day: births were not recorded back then; only baptisms.  Glad I got that off my chest.
• In one day more money is printed for Monopoly then for the US.  If ever there was a glorious typo, this is it.
• Mrs.Roosevelt was the only first lady who carried a loaded revolver with her.  To stop Mr Roosevelt from reading Lyrical Ballads to her, I’m guessing.
• Democratic Congressmen are almost twice as likely as Republican congressmen to be offered a bribe.  And the very next fact is:
• Franklin Roosevelt was related by blood or marriage to eleven other presidents.  Coincidence…?
• The female black widow spider devours the male after mating. She may kill as many as 25 males a day.  Too many Lyrical Ballads, too few Maltesers…
• The flounder has both eyes on one side of its head.  What’s so special about that?  So do humans.
• The national Institute of Education reports that over 5,000 teachers are robbed each month in American schools.  And I bet not one of them lost their copy of Lyrical Ballads.

Your homework for today: choose one or more of these interesting facts and use them to write a poem.

And to show that poetry can be fun, here’s a bit of fluff:

 

 

Almost A Ghazal, For The Beautiful Brad

Dear Mr Pitt, I long to twizzle with your cheeks.
I may be a silly twit to love the sizzle of your cheeks.

They have me quite delirious;
I am bedazzled by your cheeks.

With you I’m deadly serious –
I am bamboozled by your cheeks.

I’m in love but also frantic
to solve the puzzle of your cheeks.

Thus, I crossed the wide Atlantic
So I could nuzzle on your cheeks.

Yet I’m now locked up in jail
For getting too close to your cheeks.

But if you don’t mind posting bail
I’ll say I’m sorry to your cheeks…

If you’ll agree, you were a bad boy
Showing your backside in Troy.

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