ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

Our little poetry group has a monthly homework project to try and sketch out a poem from a set topic.

For this month we decided to try a different approach.

Instead of a set topic, each member provided two rhyming words and these were set down in a random order. The rhyming words were; sun/done,fail/trail, gate/late, goose/mousse( or moose ) test/best , thumb/bum ( there's always one ) drastic/gastric ( not a proper rhyme ! ), foe/know, remember/September ( groan ) twice/nice.

The task was to make a verse with these words in that order as the rhyming words.

This was my effort. It doesn't pretend to be any good, it's just an exercise, that's why I put it in the discussion page.


A WARNING

It's great to stretch out in the sun;
for tanning, till one gets well done.
A cancer warning seems to fail
for those who strut the fashion trail.

But when you've come to Heaven's gate,
the slip-slop-slap is way too late.
Instead of tanned, you've cooked your goose;
your innards turned to mushy mousse.

From day to day, they'll do some test,
and try to save you with the best
of cancer treatment, but their thumb
gets pointed down; Oh what a bum !

Be warned, that melanoma's drastic ;
much worse than even scouring gastric.
It is a ruthless lethal foe
that sea-side lovelys come to know.

So please take care and do remember;
the UV rays from bright September
until the end of March. Think twice
how sunshine fries the skin...Not nice !

Very clever Neville.

Anything that gets the brain cells working and the creative juices flowing is a great idea - I like it and personally I think that is a great message that you have incorporated there - I wonder if the Melanoma council might be interested in using it????? It is a great little poem - nothing wrong with it in my book.

Cheers

Maureen

That's great Neville. You are a clever cookie. Good idea too for something different.

Heather

Thanks for the encouragement Leonie, Maureen and Heather. It's a fairly difficult way to go about an exercise. I thought it was a bit too long for some people in our group, if we do it again I will suggest a shorter list.

Heather, it was a suggested exercise that I saw in a book. There's a pattern here from my younger days, monkee see monkee do

Neville I was once challenged to do a recipe in rhyme and found it difficult - but I did it. The trouble is that you can't steer off the recipe and just follow the rhyme. It was a good exercise too.

Heather

I can do that Just write the poem and then set the words. Thats the easy way.


Very clever Neville. Sent some people down your way today from the park they have a daughter in Singleton.


I told them you were famous.


Bob

I hope they didn't correct you and say that I was infamous, Bob.