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  • Clerihew
  • Four lines, two rhyming couplets. The first line is the name of a person. The rhymes and the line lengths are allowed to be - supposed to be, even - a bit rubbish.
  • Golden shovels
  • A golden shovel takes another poet's poem (or extract) and uses its words as the end words of the lines of a new poem. So if you read down the right-hand side, just the last word of each line, of the golden shovel, you will be reading the poem that inspired it. The golden shovel expands, develops or even changes the meaning of the original.
  • Haiku
  • First: five syllables Next line: seven syllables Last: five syllablesThere are some other rules too, but I'm ignoring them.
  • Limericks
  • Five-line poems, usually funny or light-hearted; the first, second and fifth lines rhyme with each other; the third and fourth lines also rhyme with each other, and are shorter.
  • Pantoums
  • A form of poetry comprised of a series of quatrains; the second and fourth lines of each stanza being repeated as the first and third of the next, until the last stanza, where the second and fourth lines are the third and first lines of the first stanza. Got that? Good.
  • Sonnets
  • Fourteen lines of iambic pentameter. The two most usual rhyme schemes are ababcdcd-efefgg (English/Shakespearean) and abbaabba-cdecde or abbaabba-cdcdcd (Italian/Petrarchan). The move from the first eight lines (the octave) to the remaining six lines (the sestet) often sees a turn in the poem's theme or 'argument'. Plus some fourteen-liners that are not strictly sonnets.
  • Triolet
  • Eight lines. The first and second lines repeat as the seventh and last lines, and the first line also repeats as the fourth line. The rhyme scheme is  ABaAabAB, capital letters representing the repeated lines.

Haiku: Tweeting

twitter

Restrictive texting: Twitter did not invent it Haiku got there first

Haiku: The Tube

tube

London Underground  Has bang on five syllables Deserves a haiku     This haiku was included in an online selection by The Londonist.

Haiku: PM-KUs

pmqs

I have a question  It’s from Janine of Hackney  How low can you sink?

Buy My Haiku

books

I might write a book Of haiku; its price will be £5.75

Haiku: Dreams

cloud

Live your dreams they said  Naked on the bus it seems  Is not what they meant

Memoir

Every year on holiday he says He’ll write his life, a memoir from the flat Where once a letter slipped beneath the mat And sent him off to work not college days He says he’ll put on record anecdotes Red … Read more

Red Brick Dreams

big_ben

If I could build the world from LEGO bricks The clean-lined architecture would delight We’d build for function and construct for kicks Each beautiful creative studded site  If I could build the world from LEGO bricks I wouldn’t let one … Read more

Sonnet to a Bricked-Up Window

no-cuts-real

Oh ticket office, ticket office, why Is your fair window really gone for good? However much I touch or hard I try The robot can not serve me like you could If you had closed ’cause I don’t have to … Read more

Sugar-Coated Sonnet

A sonnet written on the occasion of Lord Alan Sugar’s resignation form the Labour Party: So who invited that spiv to the party? No, we don’t want his cut-throat sort round here His anti-social manners are so nasty He’s nicking … Read more

Gallipoli

Written on the centenary of the start of the appalling slaughter that was the Gallipoli campaign in World War One: Rank corpses carpeted Gallipoli At Russell’s Top, Lone Pine and Suvla Bay  By bullet, bayonet or dysentery Eight months of … Read more

We, The Undersigned

petition

I’m going to add my name to two petitions My sense of right and justice is inflamed I usually have no time for politicians But those who keep their silence should be shamed There comes a time to stand up … Read more

Sonnet for Shahrokh and Reza

Free Shahrokh and Reza

Shahrokh Zamani and Reza Shahabi are imprisoned in Iran for organising trade unions. Tragically, Shahrokh died on 13 September 2015 They hold in prison those whom power fears Shahrokh and Reza, Rajai Shahr’s closed doors Lock up these men but … Read more

The Boris Bridge

Have a read of this: another scandal from City Hall. And here’s a sonnet to (not) celebrate …   Roll up! Roll up! for BoJo’s garden bridge We hope financial footfall will be brisk A tourist trap for paying patronage … Read more

N38 To The World

A Petrarchan sonnet (yes, really) on getting a night bus to catch an international train … I used to but I haven’t missed this bus At 5a.m., a half-full cart to take The staff who clean and guard before you wake … Read more

Cameron Cares?

That tear-stained bit of David Cameron’s Conservative Party conference speech … “How very dare you suggest I don’t care for the great NHS? I love it so dearly I’d sell it for nearly As much as my granny – or … Read more

Death Row Diner

Get this! Hopelessly unthinking about the barbarity and injustice of state executions, we have a “pop-up restaurant” themed as “death row dinners”. Pass the sick bag. May I invite you to my cell to dine? Is this the final meal … Read more