Welcome To Random Verse!
Hmm, Those Weren't The Original Lyrics...
From an early age, I discovered that I enjoyed creating short 'silly' rhymes. This came about because of the old radio we had in the kitchen of my parent's house. The radio was one of those old valve models (pre-electronic era). It was often difficult to hear the words of the songs being played on the radio, so I would simply make up my own words to the tune and sing the song in my own form. Hey presto! Poet at large.
Parents' Day Blushes
When I was in 'junior' school (I would have been eight or nine years old at the time), my class was asked by the teacher to write a poem about their parents. I wrote a simple, four-line rhyme, which I felt described one aspect of my parents accurately!! My verse, along with the verses of all my other classmates, was pinned to a noticeboard in the classroom, after we had gone home for the evening. That same evening, the school held a Parent's Night, where all the parents were invited to the school, including mine, and they could read the verses written by the class. Let's just say that my parents were less than happy with my rhyme! Goodness knows what the other parents must have thought. In my defence, I had no idea that these verses were going to be put on public display, and I was only eight or nine years old - innocence of youth and all that!!
A Dustbin Full Of Verse
During my school years, my only verses that saw the light of day, as opposed to those floating around my head, were limited to the occasional homework assignment. Once I turned 18 years old, I would, on occasion, write down these poetic ramblings. However, they had a very short life span, as a few weeks later I would invariably throw the verses away. And that's pretty much what has happened for the last twenty years. Inspiration, followed by commitment to paper, followed by destruction. However, there has been the odd exception to this general rule...
The Christmas Card Affair
Just before Christmas 1989, I was faced with distributing to my work colleagues a collection of rather ordinary looking Christmas cards, having left it late to buy decent cards, all the nice ones having sold out. I decided to boost the appeal of these tawdry cards somewhat by writing a unique verse in each one. Each verse was an 'attempt' at humour, eight lines long, with something loosely related to a Christmas theme inside; I did try to tailor the verse to recipient where possible. I sent out between 20-30 cards, having spent an entire day churning out these little ditties. I could not have wished for a better reaction! People actually found their verses funny. They started showing other colleagues the cards I had sent, comparing verses, and once people realised that each verse was unique, people were checking each other's Christmas cards to see if it had one of my verses inside. Ah, recognition at last... a legend in my own lunchtime.
Valentine's Day Massacre, 2006
Earlier this year, my brother rang me up and asked me to think of humorous verses to put into three Valentine's cards - the catch was I had 30 minutes to complete them. All I had to work on was the recipients' names and one thing each that they liked. Accepting the challenge, I prepared three limericks and e-mailed them to him. An hour later, I got a request to do two more of the same for a colleague of his at work. The following day, the recipients opened their cards, liked what they read, and demanded to know who wrote the rhymes. Once they heard that I had written all of these verses, I received several more challenges to write ad-hoc verse. One was to write a poem to be read out at a wedding that one of my brother's colleagues was attending. Another challenge was trying to write a verse about the most unromantic gift any of them had received on a Valentine's Day - namely, a side of ham!! I wasn't going to let a piece of ham defeat me, and responded with a saucy limerick within the hour.
And What Does The Future Hold?
Since the advent of the weblog or 'blog', many people have put their daily thoughts online, where the masses can inspect them as they wish. After a lot of nudging and encouragement by an online friend of mine, I have decided to try my own blog, and commit future bursts of random verse here - though be warned, they may end up being deleted too, we shall see how it goes...
From an early age, I discovered that I enjoyed creating short 'silly' rhymes. This came about because of the old radio we had in the kitchen of my parent's house. The radio was one of those old valve models (pre-electronic era). It was often difficult to hear the words of the songs being played on the radio, so I would simply make up my own words to the tune and sing the song in my own form. Hey presto! Poet at large.
Parents' Day Blushes
When I was in 'junior' school (I would have been eight or nine years old at the time), my class was asked by the teacher to write a poem about their parents. I wrote a simple, four-line rhyme, which I felt described one aspect of my parents accurately!! My verse, along with the verses of all my other classmates, was pinned to a noticeboard in the classroom, after we had gone home for the evening. That same evening, the school held a Parent's Night, where all the parents were invited to the school, including mine, and they could read the verses written by the class. Let's just say that my parents were less than happy with my rhyme! Goodness knows what the other parents must have thought. In my defence, I had no idea that these verses were going to be put on public display, and I was only eight or nine years old - innocence of youth and all that!!
A Dustbin Full Of Verse
During my school years, my only verses that saw the light of day, as opposed to those floating around my head, were limited to the occasional homework assignment. Once I turned 18 years old, I would, on occasion, write down these poetic ramblings. However, they had a very short life span, as a few weeks later I would invariably throw the verses away. And that's pretty much what has happened for the last twenty years. Inspiration, followed by commitment to paper, followed by destruction. However, there has been the odd exception to this general rule...
The Christmas Card Affair
Just before Christmas 1989, I was faced with distributing to my work colleagues a collection of rather ordinary looking Christmas cards, having left it late to buy decent cards, all the nice ones having sold out. I decided to boost the appeal of these tawdry cards somewhat by writing a unique verse in each one. Each verse was an 'attempt' at humour, eight lines long, with something loosely related to a Christmas theme inside; I did try to tailor the verse to recipient where possible. I sent out between 20-30 cards, having spent an entire day churning out these little ditties. I could not have wished for a better reaction! People actually found their verses funny. They started showing other colleagues the cards I had sent, comparing verses, and once people realised that each verse was unique, people were checking each other's Christmas cards to see if it had one of my verses inside. Ah, recognition at last... a legend in my own lunchtime.
Valentine's Day Massacre, 2006
Earlier this year, my brother rang me up and asked me to think of humorous verses to put into three Valentine's cards - the catch was I had 30 minutes to complete them. All I had to work on was the recipients' names and one thing each that they liked. Accepting the challenge, I prepared three limericks and e-mailed them to him. An hour later, I got a request to do two more of the same for a colleague of his at work. The following day, the recipients opened their cards, liked what they read, and demanded to know who wrote the rhymes. Once they heard that I had written all of these verses, I received several more challenges to write ad-hoc verse. One was to write a poem to be read out at a wedding that one of my brother's colleagues was attending. Another challenge was trying to write a verse about the most unromantic gift any of them had received on a Valentine's Day - namely, a side of ham!! I wasn't going to let a piece of ham defeat me, and responded with a saucy limerick within the hour.
And What Does The Future Hold?
Since the advent of the weblog or 'blog', many people have put their daily thoughts online, where the masses can inspect them as they wish. After a lot of nudging and encouragement by an online friend of mine, I have decided to try my own blog, and commit future bursts of random verse here - though be warned, they may end up being deleted too, we shall see how it goes...
posted by Poetic License | 11:41 PM
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