Sure, I enjoy reading the odd birthday card and cereal box every now and then but when somebody offers to read me a poem I expertly cringe on the inside.
Once I actually cringed on the outside and offended the poemer to no end... and ended up overcompensating by sitting through three terrible poems, faking a smile and piercing fake nails into my palms.
After that anguish, the poemer then requested I “constructively critique” their poetic train-wreck so as to “make it better”, a challenge I only undertook to once again overcompensate for my inability to hide my feelings quickly enough.
The things guilt will make a person do!
As a writer I pride myself on being able to spin out a good story quicker than McDonalds can cook an egg and sausage biscuit!
I have blogs, I have books, I have novels, I have screenplays but when it comes to writing poetry, my creative libido just shrivels up and scuttles away!
Which is what happened recently when I was called upon to deliver a poem.
My first instinct was to panic and run away, but I womaned-up and sought advice from a budding (and broke) poet who had too much time on his hands.
This was obviously a mistake because I ended up getting half a day's worth of poetry lecturing that I will never again use in my life.
For the first time in my writing career I considered not putting my name on a piece of work I had written – yes, it was simply that bad!
No actually, it was worse than that bad!
Ella Roberts,
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