What You Should Know About Writing Poetry

TOM - Hello everybody, we’re cartoon friends of Pinchus, actually we’re his only friends of any kind but we won’t go into that just now. We generally hang loose in other places but Pinchus thought that our ‘Guide to Poetry’ might be useful to the people here so this is our guide to all you ever ever need to know about poetry.

DICK -  Yeah, and we’ve been to Cambridge.

TOM - That was a good day out watching all those idiots driving punts.

DICK -  No No you stupid stupid numpty.  Don’t tell ‘em it was a good day out.  If I say we’ve been to Cambridge it makes us sound brainy.  It was a good day though, weren’t it.  And that girl doing that little dance …

TOM - She wasn’t doing a dance Dick, she was trying to stop you from looking up her skirt.

DICK -  She was lovely.  Skimpy pink knickers with white lacey bits.

TOM -  Well, anyway, the only way we could think of to make all this in the slightest bit interesting was to use lots of colours, and being only cartoons we can’t suss out how to do that on this site so this is going to be so so very boring but basically all you need to know, if you really really want to be a poet, is that you have a sheet of paper and you put words and spaces on it.

DICK - The spaces are the bestest bits.

TOM - What follows is some real proper knowledge that we picked up on our day trip to Cambridge.  We might add more one day.

DICK - If we can be arsed.

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abecedarian
TOM - This is all about ABC, you know, A is for apple, B is for bladder, C is for …
DICK - Jeez Tom, if they don’t even know their ABC we’re wasting our fucking time.

accent
TOM- What you sound like when you speak.  I have a friend who has a Cockney accent and he sounds all sort of common, and I’ve another friend who has a Northern accent, and I can’t understand a word.
DICK - You so have not got two friends.  Your accent is a bit posh you know.
TOM - Do you think?
DICK - Yeah, posh and poncy.  Posh, poncy and clueless.  Posh, poncy, clueless and dim.

alexandrine
DICK - Alex was this bloke I knew, well he went out with this girl called Rine.  He used to write poems that got longer on condoms and so any poems you write on condoms is now known as Alex-and-Rine.

allegory
TOM - A poem that gives you a rash.

alliteration
DICK - Reading or writing poems, probably with the light on.

angst
DICK - Badly spelt gnats that only attack poets.  The bites of these little buggers, that’s the gnats not the poets, also injects a mild but irritating poison that induces a sense of worthlessness and of being misunderstood.  It then develops into annoying bits that make the victim shout and itch until they bleed and then cry.

anthology
TOM- Study of ants in poems.

assonance
DICK - It’s all in the bowel sound because it's a poem about farting.

ballad
DICK - You like a ballad don’t you Tom?
TOM- Englebert humpledick

bathos
TOM - It’s when you want to have a bath but there’s no hot water left and you go all sad and a write a poem about it.

blank verse
TOM- This is like when you have a sheet of paper ready to write a poem but you haven't started yet.  Technically, in the poem trade, this is known as a blank verse.

burden
DICK - You Tom.
TOM - Carrying your drinks shopping.

cadence
DICK - I’m getting bored with this now.

caesura
DICK - I ain’t got a fucking clue!
TOM - Not even half way through and you need to take a rest.

conceit
TOM - Sounds dodgy
DICK - Yeah, I don’t think it means anything really, it's just a made-up word

couplet
TOM - This is when you hire out two or three lines of poetry to another poet to use.

cynghanedd
DICK - This is some Welsh poemy stuff.  I think it’s about wooing sheep.

diction
TOM - When you’re hooked on poetry, medically speaking you have a poetry a-diction.

didactic
TOM - Poems about things you did in the attic.

dirge
TOM - Poems about doing dirty things
DICK - Really!
TOM - Housework and washing and stuff.

ditty
DICK -  A poet's droppings.

emoh
TOM- Poems written by Tellytubbies

end-stopped
TOM- When you come to the end.  You stop.

enjambment
TOM - Posh foreign word for jam and marmalade and honey.

foot
DICK - A blob at the end of your leg

free verse
DICK - Not a lot of people know this, but a lot of these poets buy their poems.  There’s this big racket going on.  In Tibet there are poetry factories where young kids earn less than a penny a day writing poems which are then sold on for as much as fifty times that.  Sometimes they do a buy one get one free offer, and that is known as free verse.

haiku
TOM - What you shout out when you chop poems in half

heroic couplets
DICK - Superman and Wonderwoman writing silly love poems to each other whilst they’re shagging.

internal rhyme
TOM - A poem you read indoors.

limerick
TOM - A poem you read in Ireland

metaphor
TOM - Is when you put four verses together and they all meet-up to make one monster poem.

monosyllable
DICK - This is a really old syllable ‘cos it ain’t in stereo

muses
DICK - Ahh, the ladies!  It’s in truth the only reason I took up poetry.
TOM- You sure it’s not a breakfast cereal.
DICK - Don’t be so stupid.  It’s crumpet!

ode
DICK - It’s what you send to Grecian urns.
TOM - What?
DICK - It’s true!
TOM - Does a Grecian earn more than a Tibetan poem writer do you think?
DICK   - Don't know Tom.  I shouldn't think so 'cos they just stand around making up poems about standing around.

onomatopoeia
DICK - Is a special mats that only poets are allowed to pee on

oxymoron
DICK - Tom standing next to an ox

parody
DICK - Taking the piss.

particle
DICK - Dust on the page
TOM - Could be an atomic particle
DICK - Don’t be fucking stupid.  How many atomic particles on a page of poetry have you seen?

pattern poem
DICK - Poem written on toilet walls and forms a kind of wallpaper pattern

quatrain
TOM- Four trains

refrain
TOM - When you’re on one of the four trains and you have to stop smoking ‘cos they’ve said please refrain from smoking.

rhapsody
DICK - Queen done one of these - rock’n’roll!
TOM- What Elizabeth 2?
DICK - Jeez Tom.  The fucking band with the poofty bloke with the balancing slug.  That Queen.

rhyme-scheme
TOM - What you decorate your poem with.

sapphic ode
TOM - Something to do with lesbians writing poems.
DICK - Ohh I like having lesbians in my bed but I never knew they wrote poems.  Do you think they write them with dildo lookie-likee pens?
TOM - Lesbians scare me.

septain
TOM - a poem that’s gone all mouldy and eucky

sestina
TOM - After doing a lot of poem writing you will need an afternoon nap.
DICK - With Tina.

Shakespearean sonnet
TOM - A poem with lots of yee and thou and thee

slam
TOM - Throwing poetry down on the floor.

sonnet
TOM - A poem you wear on your head.

stanza
DICK - Polish bloke that done next door’s plastering.

stress
DICK - What I get from you Tom

triplet
DICK - One poet in three is allowed to drop a trip.

trochee
TOM - What bald poets wear on their heads.

villanelle
DICK - This line goes with this line and that goes with … for fuck’s sake get a life.

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NOW WRITE A POEM.