33


how long have dedicated Christmas shops been around
& how many of them contain lines as good as
please don't pull string out of the hamster
it beats advice to poets
from websites/workshops/
distance learning programmes/
poets-in-the-community schemes/
backs of cereal packets/
competitions/ creative writing seminars/critical friends/
W.H.Smith's creative guides/
which proliferate
& I just thought I would check with
you Marsh
as a critical friend
to see if you agreed
that these examples are just wrong
1        poems should be written only under a waxing moon
2        if you turn your poem inside out everyone will think it is a new one
3        if you don't use punctuation in a poem all the birds will fly out of your garden
4        any poems north of Watford should not be left out over winter
5        poets whose work cannot be understood immediately & entirely
          by anyone past the age of puberty have to pay a congestion charge
6        the artistic mass of a poem is the number of alliteration features
          times the number of assonance features divided by
          the average number of syllables per line
7        the poem is a spiritual doorway & you fall off the last line straight into heaven
8        poems can extend your penis by at least two inches in six weeks
9        if you don't recognise a poem it is probably foreign
          & should be detained for months so we can all get used to it
10      once poems have been defrosted they should on no account be refrozen
11      prunings from poems should be recycled within six months
          & can stop weeds coming up at poetry readings
13      the closer poetry gets to music the less likely anyone is to be able
          to find a spare set of strings
14      poems can be burned in most multi-fuel stoves but the ashes should not be used
          on the skin even on Wednesdays
15      never put anything in your poem that you wouldn't put in your mouth