Poems that rhyme | John Slim

THIS was never intended to be a pile of protests. All I did was choose a few subjects and wax lyrical. No intention of marching in the streets or waving the bloodied banner.

Funny, how things don’t work out.

Now that it’s too late, now that I have blown it, it has dawned on me that everything that follows is nevertheless throwing another stone, raising another shout – all without my having had to gear myself up for it.

It’s simply that I have had the sheer cheek to put a bit of work into my poems: I’ve actually made them rhyme and scan, instead of choosing a chunk of prose, chopping it up into lines of arbitrary length, delivering it in tones of passion or awestruck wonder and waiting to see what happens – which is what you have to do nowadays if you expect to be called a poet.

Who was the work-shy genius who thought of it?

So yes, I now realise that what follows may correctly be seen as a protest against the sort of stuff that gets people recognised as poets these days. As I point out somewhere – with rhyme and rhythm, naturally – it’s interesting that among the many words in the English language that don’t rhyme with any other word are poem, poet and poetry.

It’s just a shame that so many would-be poets have taken this as a hint and used it as an excuse to churn out stuff that must have the late Keats, Shelley and the rest of the hard-working boys turning in their graves.

John Slim