Friday 25 August 2023

National Poetry Day 2023: "How Poetry Got Her Hooks in Me" by Andrew M. Bell


It is an ancient Poet

and he stoppeth me.

“Beware of poetry, my son,

She’s a gold digger.

She’ll chew you up and spit you out, 

leave you penniless and lying in a gutter,

drunk on absinthe,

while the rich novelists and scriptwriters

step over you, laughing.”

 

“Hold off! unhand me, greybeard loon!”

Unheeding, I slunk off to my garret

to compose a villanelle, 

heavily derivative of Dylan Thomas.

 

I only wanted to get girls,

but before I knew it

I was roaming with the Romantics,

bopping with the Beats

and cruising with the Classicists.

Popping some Pope, shooting some Stevie Smith

or hitting up Heaney,

I was hopelessly addicted.

And I never did get the girl.


by Andrew M. Bell


Photo credit: Alison Gilmore



For more information about poet, Andrew M. Bell, see:

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