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  • About poetry
  • Articles about poetry and favourite poems by others
  • My Poems
  • From sonnets to villanelles, limericks to ballads, the occasional rap and plenty of straightforward rants, serious and humorous and sometimes both, here is Janine's verse.
  • 1980s Ranting Poetry: The Big J
  • Janine performed poetry in the 1980s as The Big J. This section contains poems, articles and other bits n bobs from this historic era.
  • Acrostics
  • An acrostic is a poem in which the first (or sometimes, the last) letter of each line spells out a word or phrase.
  • Ballads
  • Each stanza has four iambic lines, of four, three, four and three beats. The four lines rhyme abcb, and balladeers may use an internal rhyme in the first and third lines.
  • Festive Funnies
  • Some daftly-rewritten Christmas odes
  • Formal poetry
  • Villanelles, sonnets, haiku, limericks and more ... Not all Janine's poems follow strict forms, but these ones do ...
  • 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.

  • Four Lines That Rhyme
  • Quick quatrains with a rhyme scheme.
  • Villanelles
  • A nineteen-line poetic form consisting of five three-line stanzas (tercets) followed by a final, four-line stanza (quatrain).
  • Poetry Performances
  • In this section, you will find information about gigs past and future, plus a few videos of Janine performing,
  • SpOAKen Word Lewes
  • Janine ran Spoaken Word Lewes for two years, from September 2021 - spelt that way because it took place at the Royal Oak, 3 Station Street, Lewes, East Sussex.
  • Stealth Aspies
  • Janine performed as part of the Stealth Aspies theatre company, a group of autistic adults telling autistic life stories on stage.

Betsey Trotwood Summer All-Dayer

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The annual day-long feast of spoken word at Farringdon’s favourite hostelry. My comeback gig, after a mere 25-year break. Facebook event here.

Villanelle: No Autistics Here

This story is about residents objecting to a care home for autistic adults in their street. I wanted to write a poem expressing my upset that people could take a stance like this, and finally settled on a poetic form called the Villanelle: … Read more

Ode to a Second Royal Pregnancy

It is incumbent on poets to compose verse to mark royal occasions. So here is my effort concerning the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s announcement that one is expecting: Radio Four is deeply concerned The lady next door has recently … Read more

Sonnet to the Domestic Dog

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Aw. Dontcha just love ’em? There is a fact scarce known in our society That of the world’s great treasury of creatures The one that manifests the most variety Of size and shape and other body features Is not a … Read more

Poetry Performance at A-Fem Fundraiser

LARC, 62 Fieldgate Street, London, E1 1ES (map). Facebook event here. Fundraising party for Afem2014. Join us for food, music, spoken word, discussion and dancing to raise funds for Afem2014. Fun feminist people of all genders and none welcome. Larc is a … Read more

Her Name Is Reeva

Her name is Reeva Reeva Steenkamp Not ‘Oscar Pistorius’ girlfriend’ Not ‘model’ Not ‘reality TV star’ Her name is Reeva Her name is Reeva She was not just a model But also a law graduate She was not just a … Read more

The Housewife’s Trial

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An oldie from the 1980s, a decade of Thatcher, Reagan, crap haircuts and appallingly sexist washing powder adverts. They are not exactly bastions of feminism now, but in the 1980s we were subjected to images of women descending into hysterical … Read more

The Ballad of Gibbons Corner

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Since Eighteen Ninety In all of its finery Stood Gibbons the furniture sellers London’s last such attraction With cash-only transaction Until plastic caught up with the fellas They eventually gave in To modernity’s whim With a sign saying ‘We accept … Read more

The Sun Has Got His Hat On

How is it that when the weather warms up, some men think it is ok to shout out comments about a woman’s appearance – and expect us to take it as a compliment?! The sun has got his hat on … Read more

Homeless Man Dies Frozen

In February 2013, homeless man Daniel Gauntlett died of hypothermia on the doorstep of an empty bungalow in Aylesford, Kent. Homeless man dies frozen on steps of empty bungalow Man named Daniel Gauntlett Headline of Kent local paper Just words … Read more

If It Weren’t For …

If it weren’t for hangovers, I’d get drunk every night If it weren’t for employers, employment would be alright If it weren’t for delays, the train wouldn’t be late If it weren’t for the state, the welfare state would be … Read more

If

A rewrite of Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If’: If you evade your tax when all around you Are paying theirs and saying you should too If values like integrity confound you But ruthlessness comes naturally to you If you can live off … Read more

A Sonnet to a Tory MP

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A rewrite of Shakespeare’s Eighteenth Sonnet: Shall I compare thee to a winter’s day? Thou art more cold and more intemperate Tough times won’t shake the buddies of Theresa May Nor cruelty’s lease expire on short a date No time … Read more

Lost Consonant

Iain Duncan Smith, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions – and therefore chief benefit-cutter and witchhunter of disabled people and other claimants – and Conservative MP for Chingford, where his predecessor was the equally loathsome Norman Tebbit: What evil … Read more

An Ode to William Hague

The Foreign Secretary’s called William Hague His purpose in life is quite vague We sent him to Iraq But they sent him straight back Saying they’d rather have a dose of the plague

An Ode to Jeremy Hunt

The Health Secretary’s named Jeremy Hunt He sits on the benches at front It would, inter alia, Insult female genitalia To call him a vile Tory cunt

Away In A Palace

Written for Prince George, then still a foetus, in 2012 – to the tune of Away In A Manger: It won’t need a manger, a crib or a bed For the new royal baby to lay down its crowned head … Read more

‘British Work for British Hands’

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Seeing this Conservative candiddate’s advert in a 1910 issue of the East London Advertiser, it struck me that the ‘British jobs for British workers’ slogan of a couple of years ago was neither new nor left-wing. ‘British work for British … Read more

Mood Swings

An attempt to put the ups and downs of depression into verse … Bright skies, natural highs, Summer haze, happy days, Good things … mood swings Dark cloud, not proud Guilt, shame, down again Life’s shit, deep pit Break down, … Read more

Knives. Forks. Spoons. Obviously.

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Knives. Forks. Spoons. Obviously. What other arrangement could it possibly be? There’s a reason that cutlery drawers have three distinct spaces So we can place our utensils in their correct places It’s forks in the middle, knives and spoons to … Read more