DIFFERENT TYPES OF POETRY YOU MIGHT TRY: Comic Poetry

 Writing comic poetry

Everyone loves comic verse, and it is probably the most ubiquitous type of poetry there is. Whether it’s Shakespeare or Edward Lear, dirty couplets scrawled on a toilet wall or a merry jingle to round off an advert, there is something about humour in rhyming form that appeals to most people, even if they aren’t generally poetry lovers. Much children’s poetry has a comic element, for instance:

My Pet Pegasus

 

I love to ride Old Peggy,

above the garden sheds,

while all the other children

are sleeping in their beds -

but all the people down below

get horse poo on their heads.

 

by Louise Wilford

 

I haven’t written much comic verse myself but I will share some of my rather pathetic attempts here [see above!]. It isn’t really my forte, but I appreciate other people’s abilities in this genre. You can find lots of examples of superb comic verse on the following internet sites, and I urge you in particular to look up Brian Bilston’s work which is fabulously skilful and takes the art to a whole new level of brilliance:

https://brianbilston.com/

https://interestingliterature.com/2018/03/10-of-the-best-comic-funny-poems-everyone-should-read/

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/wendy-cope

https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poems/other/limerick/

There are also many fantastically clever and witty song lyricists out there, from Cole Porter to The Arctic Monkeys.

Though it is perfectly possible to write a funny poem in free verse, most well-known comic poems tend to be written in rhyme, whether we’re thinking of limericks, clerihews, Lewis Carrol’s ‘Jabberwocky’, the very boring and excessively long satires of Dryden and Pope, the comical nonsense of Hilaire Belloc or Ogden Nash, or the fabulous wit of Wendy Cope. There are poets known for their skill with rhythm and rhyme, whose work often takes a turn towards humour, such as John Betjemen. And there are poets who are associated with intellectual, ground-breaking free verse who find themselves resorting to rhyme when they tackle humour, such as T.S.Eliot’s Old Possums Book Of Practical Cats.  So my first suggestion, if you are thinking of giving humour a go, is to give your rhyming muscles a work-out. There is something about a regular rhythm and rhyme scheme that instils certain expectations in the reader, setting up and delivering the punchline in a satisfying way. Sometimes, you can get away with very diluted humour as long as it rhymes – that’s my method, anyway!

              Start out trying your hand at short simple poems such as limericks. My advice would be to ignore the famous ones by Edward Lear as they often just use line one repeated as line five, which I personally feel is a cop-out – I think it is funnier to have an original closing line. Here’s one I wrote for a student:

There was a young student named Crook

who would never look into a book.

‘All your tests you will fail,

if you don’t read this tale,’

said his teacher. The student said ‘F***!’

 

               Another good way of starting to write humorous poems is to try out a parody or spoof version of a well-known poem. I wrote the following as a spoof of Marlowe’s ‘The passionate shepherd to his love’:

 

The Passionate Single-Father To His

Commitment-phobic Girlfriend

 

Come live with me and be my love.

I know you hate my place: I’ll move.

If you don’t like my dog or flat,

I’ll sell my home and buy a cat.

 

I’ll shower you with pricey stuff.

The Argos brochure’s not enough

to show the myriad things I’ll buy

to warm your heart and catch your eye:

 

a flat-screen HD-ready box;

ceramic straighteners for your locks;

Swarovsky crystal; white-gold studs;

Curry’s top-range of black goods;

 

an iPad dipped in purest gilt;

a new bed with a handmade quilt;

an iphone with a range of apps;

a tiny dog designed for laps.

 

I’ll strip the paper from the room,

cut down the hedge to banish gloom.

So, if these gifts my feelings prove,

come live with me and be my love.

 

I’ll laminate the whole ground floor;

I’ll tile the kitchen, paint the door;

I’ll tell my kids ‘Don’t make a sound!’;

I’ll stop my mum from coming round.

 

So if these measures can persuade -

and if your fears I’ve now allayed -

and if these words your feelings move,

then live with me and be my love.

 

 

 I later discovered that Cecil Day-Lewis had already written a parody of this poem which you can find here:

https://poetryarchive.org/poem/come-live-me-and-be-my-love/

I’m sure there have been many others.

 

Another spoof poem I wrote took Shakespeare’s famous sonnet as its inspiration:

 

To My Dishwasher

 

Shall I compare thee to the good old days?

Thou art more handsome and more literate;

rough hands do shake the snarling suds of grey

and someone’s hands hath broken, now, a plate;

sometimes too soon the clumsy hand resigns,

and often is the gold chipped off the rim;

and every fair from fair sometimes declines

by chance, or egg yolk plastered on the trim;

but thy eternal logo shall not fade,

nor lose possession of that debt I ow’st;

nor shall I moan “It hasn’t yet been paid”,

when in eternal drains thy soapsuds grow’st.

  So long as I can sit and watch TV,

  so long lives this, and this gives life to me.

 

I still don’t own a dishwasher.

Another suggestion is to go for bathos. This just means anti-climax and is a basic tenet of humour. The following poem was written while sitting in a café at Cannon Hall, during a miserable day out:

 

July visit to Cannon Hall

 

The forecast said the weather

would be just a few light showers,

but the rain is falling steadily

like it’s set to last for hours.

 

The giant slides – roped off today.

The ice-cream queues – too long.

The café kitchen’s shut as some

‘electric thing’ went wrong.

 

The sheep races are cancelled

and the ferrets can’t be found.

The porcupines are lying low –

the meercats, gone to ground.

 

The outdoor climbing frames are wet,

the sandpit’s like a mire;

the swings and tunnels run with rain.

Kids slip off the zip wire.

 

We have two bags of pellets

to feed the shedded cattle.

So many folk are feeding them

that soon they’ll start to rattle.

 

Maybe the smelly rubbish bins

where we just saw a mouse

are simply an extension of

the mini-beast and reptile house.

 

It’s Cannon Hall in Summer.

The food is overpriced.

It’s £10 each for adults

but we can’t go on the rides.

 

All we can do is stand and drip,

and wait to spend more cash.

And when we take child home at five,

he’ll no doubt have a rash.

 

But when, much later, we look back,

imagine child at play –

we’ll think, with rosy fondness,

of that lovely July day.          

 

Another poem of mine which uses bathos (and which was published in an anthology created by the Open University’s Write Club) is the following:

 

I come from a broken home

 

I come from a broken ‘ome, luv:

it snapped when I were six.

I come from a town up north, duck,

a place out in the sticks.

 

Me dad ran off wi’ a teenage girl.

Me school were a run-down comp.

We med our own entertainment, duck,

wi’ on’y the rec to romp.

 

Me sister and I wore plastic shoes

picked out from a council box.

Our ‘ouse were owned be t’council, luv,

and the yard were full o’ rocks.

 

Me mum delivered Avon, duck,

the Pools and Tupperware.

She med our clothes on a Singer, luv,

knit scarves and cut our ‘air.

 

We’d get a balloon off the rag ‘n’ bone

when we giv ‘im some old weed;

our skippin’ rope were washing-line

an’ our pet were a centipede.

 

We didn’t ‘ave a phone, duck.

Fish fingers and chips fer tea.

The coke fire spat as we idly sat

watchin’ black and white TV.

 

I could say, though our mam was poor, duck,

she never let us go wi’out –

we’d allus ‘ave some chores to do

an’ we’d allus get a clout.

 

They were simpler times in them days, luv,

an’ a person knew her place:

it was right down there at t’bottom, duck,

wi’ a bruise an’ a mucky face.

 

I could say, though we ‘ad it rough, luv,

we all knew what family meant:

it meant bein’ hit wi’ a wooden spoon

an’ wishin’ yer lived in Kent.

 

 

This poem caused a family row as my mum thought I was deliberately misrepresenting my childhood, in public. People often don’t appreciate the way reality is mangled and exaggerated for comic effect, which is a serious consideration for any would-be humorous writer.

Notice how the use of colloquialisms adds to the (admittedly minor) comedic tone in this poem. The next poem uses colloquialisms too and is more or less a verbatim record of the messages my five year old niece, living up in Yorkshire, used to leave on our answerphone when we lived in London. Interestingly, this slice of real life caused no problems for my mum who actually framed it and had it on her kitchen wall for years!

 

Message on the ansaphone

 

'Ello? 'Ello?

Can I talk to Auntie Weeze?

I’ve gotta cold again

an I'm gunna 'ave to sneeze....

Would you like one o' me sweets,

cos it isn't time for bed?

I on'y like the pink 'n’s -

you can 'ave the green instead.

I'm wearin' me big slippers

wi' the rabbit on the front.

I've jus' phoned t'say

I'll get you some if yer want.

Me friend Casey's bin t'play

cos me mum said it's all right,

but she 'ad to go 'ome early

cos we always start to fight.

I've bin slidin' down me slide

an I've done a lot o' things -

I can swim now, Auntie Weeze,

if I wear me water wings.

I've gotta bran' new goldfish

- but it's on'y very small...

Can I talk to Uncle Philip

or is 'e at work an' all?

When you're next 'ere at our 'ouse,

you will 'ave to play wi' me,

but I'll 'ave to put the phone down

cos I need to 'ave a wee.

BYEEEE!’

 

As a brief aside, my mum used to get me to write short humorous verses for the Christmas cards she sent to her colleagues at the hospital where she was a nurse, and then she’d let her colleagues believe she’d written them herself!

              A final comment is that, while there are numerous clever and funny poems written for adults, poems which are wry or dry or filthy or mocking, hysterical or satirical, comic poetry, as I noted earlier, is a particularly useful tool when writing poems for children. Children often enjoy wordplay and lists and general daftness. Writing such poems is often good fun too. Here’s one I wrote for a small online competition run by the Suffolk Writers Facebook Group (I won first prize, much to my surprise):

 

Pink

‘I’m NOT wearing pink!’

cried poor Emily Spruce.

‘It’s a colour for babies

and strawberry mousse!

It’s underdone meat!

It’s bon bons! It’s puce!

No, I’m not wearing pink!’

declared Emily Spruce.

 

‘But pink is for sunsets,’

her grandmother said.

‘It’s for people to wear

who don’t want to wear red!’

‘But pink isn’t hip –

it has little street cred!

And it doesn’t look good

when you’re a redhead.

 

No, I’m not wearing pink,’

said poor Em, once again.  

‘I’ve never liked salmon,

or used a pink pen.

I dislike flamingos

and old pink-faced men!

And I’d never be seen

in the Pink Panther’s den!

 

No, prawns, shrimp and piglets

always need cleanin’,

and roses and pansies

are always just preenin’,

and pink Barbie dolls

have no sensible meanin’!

No, pink is a colour      

I’d NEVER be seen in.’

 

 NOTE: The poems I have included in this article were not intended to be set out in double-line spacing, but that's how they end up when I cut and paste them onto the blog.

 

WRITING TASKS:

1.      Choose a few people you know who have surnames which are funny in themselves or would produce good rhymes, and have a go at writing some limericks using those names;

 

2.      Choose a well-known rhyming poem – preferably a sonnet or a ballad or some other relatively simple form. Some suggestions: ‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may’ (Herrick), ‘My love is like a red, red rose’ (Burns), ‘Drink to me only with thine eyes’ (Ben Jonson), Wordsworth’s daffodil poem, Coleridge’s ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’.  Try not to choose a poem that is in itself intended to be humorous or parodic. Have a go at updating it, using the same ideas but in modern idiom, and following the same form as the original. You might want to write a witty parody, a silly spoof, a jolly pastiche or a gently humorous homage;

 

3.      Whenever you’re alone on public transport or in a café or on a park bench – anywhere you can listen in to snippets of other people’s conversations – jot down any phrases or sentences you hear that strike you as humorous. Then later try to incorporate them into a poem, or use them as inspiration, particularly for a comic poem written in your own regional dialect;

 

4.      Think of an outing or special occasion you enjoyed and imagine what it would have been like if everything went wrong.

 

5.      Write a humorous poem suitable for a child – this could be a humorous re-telling of a fairytale, or a warning about something silly, or you might choose one of the following titles for inspiration: 

 

The Day We Went To The Zoo

Auntie Muriel’s Apple Pie

Peel Me A Grape – I’m hungry!

The Wonky Armadillo

The Fly Who Couldn’t Find The Door

The Girl Who Liked Eating Beads.