Sunday 14 April 2013

NaPoWriMo

This is NaPoWriMo or National Poetry Writing Month during which the aim is to write a poem a day for the whole of April.  Oh yeah, right. Like that's going to happen round this neck of the woods.  

I am hopeless at writing serious poetry.  Actually, I'm hopeless at writing serious anything.  I admire people who can do it, but mostly, it just makes me snigger at its awfulness or (more likely) yawn and turn the page.  Raised as I was on a diet of Spike Milligan and Edward Lear, I have a fair appetite for doggerel and stupid Limericks but I also enjoy a bit of Browning and I loved the Liverpool Poets as a teenager. However, the closest I can get to producing anything remotely sober and considered is by playing with the Instant Poetry App on my phone which can produce something quite convincing.  Might try shoving a few words together and sending them to a competition one day - if only I can be bothered.

When the children were younger, I used to make up the odd rhyme to keep them entertained and one of their all time favourites was The Sad Story of Bella Balloo.  Many's the long car journey that has been enlivened by this being roared in the back seat of the car.....

The Sad Story of Bella Balloo

Bella Balloo was forty two and fat as a fat thing could be,
Her mother said 'Bel -  you're starting to swell - you'll soon be as fat as me!
Take care of yourself or you'll be on the shelf until you're a hundred and three.'
'No, no', said our Bella, 'I'll find a nice fella - one who will make a good hubby.
Who is fair, fat and kind and one who won't mind if his darling intended is chubby'.
But sadly for B, she picked upon me, I'm Herman, the German, the rogue.
I'm round fair and spotty, with a big flabby botty and a passion for Kylie Minogue.
I fed her on pies and told her sweet lies, she loved me for better or wurst.
I fed her on honey and stole all her money and, eventually, poor Bella burst.

16 comments:

  1. I think I had the same poetry diet you did growing up and I do remember going to see John Cooper Clarke once.....and your poem is very entertaining!

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    1. ThNk you Libby. Oh yes, John Cooper Clarke - should have added him to the list!

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  2. I write a mean silly limerick but as for serious stuff, erm, no way. I'm not a great fan of poetry. I remember studying it at school and if I needed a guide book to tell me about the imagery and various references I usually started yawning.

    I like the story of Bella Balloo, and I too grew up with Spike Milligan (Can a parrot eat a carrot standing on its head?) and Edward Lear, oh and Pam Ayres. :)

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    1. Oh I wish I'd looked after me tits....quoting dear Pam, of course....

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  3. Lear limericks are easy, because you don't have to come up with a punchline rhyme - he just repeated the last word of the first line, the tosser.

    There was was a poet called Edward
    Whom Simon the Cowell had said would
    Be king of the rhymes
    Just as long as I'm
    Allowed to market, exploit, delude the public and empty the pockets of children who think it's clever to try to emulate
    Jedward

    Sorry, scansion may have drifted a bit there.

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  4. As did typography. For the first 'was', please read 'once'. Or just ignore me. Or go to bed.

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    1. Dear me, Tim - do I detect a touch of bile in your review of the late, great Mr Lear? Anyway I thought your Limerick beat any of his by a country mile!
      Night night.

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  5. Better or wurst - brilliant!

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    1. Thank you Rog - I was secretly pleased with it myself!

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  6. I love your poem. Reminds me of rhymes I used to read as a child where someone met a sorry end for being naughty or telling lies. Hilaire Belloc's Matilda comes to mind.
    I agree with Rog - better or wurst is just perfect!

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    1. It also reminds me a bit of Struwel Peter if you ever came across that book as a child? Dreadful - the stuff of nightmares - with little children getting their thumbs cut off for thumb sucking. I loved it!

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  7. When we were kids in NZ we always used to recite "A muvva was bathing her babies one night" (about the baby who fell down the plughole...very morbid) we did it in our best cockney accent though on reflection it might have been a Liverpudlian accent

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    1. Can you still do the accent, and could you film yourself and stick in on YouTube? Please?!

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    2. I think we would have loads of complaints from the Liverpudlians _ Mancunians and East Enders for mashing the accent up per chimney sweep Dick Can Dyke

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    3. Hahaha - I'd forgotten about good old Dick - Gorbloimey Mary Poppins!

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  8. Utterly brilliant. And. A great idea to stop the kids fighting. You're wasted on 'ere :) are you going to Britmums? Xx

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Oh go on - say something for God's sake...