written and posted by members of Lancashire Dead Good Poets' Society

Monday 8 August 2011

06:00:00 Posted by Shaun , , , , , 4 comments

Funny guy.

I’m that man you know that always pushes it too far. It isn’t my fault, I was born that way and really, are you gonna mark a guy down for giving that extra little bit...So yes, I am that man you know that always pushes it too far.

I really had no idea how to open a blog on humour. According to the source of all useless information, Wikipedia, humour “derives from the humoral medicine of the Ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humors (Latin: humor, "body fluid"), control human health and emotion.Now, whilst this is not the snappy quote I was after, it did inspire me to write something of a risque poem for you all.

Perverted

There was a young boy from Berlin,

Who developed a fondness for quim.

He stuck out his tongue, during birth (so, so wrong)

And his Mum tried to force him back in!

As you might have guessed, humour isn’t something I try my hand at too often, and when I do, it tends to be aimed on the shock value aspect of things. Essentially, I go for a reaction- anything that might make a scoffing, snorting, howling or tutting sound come from the audience. I find this is my best way to build something of an impression and if I bomb, I bomb.

If I was going to work on funny poetry, there are several cracking poets I’d love to try and learn from. For Christmas ’93 my parents bought me A Children's Book Of Verse which contained some glorious nonsense poetry. Spike Milligan, Edward Lear, Alfred Noyes and co soon became favourite reads and I think, to this day, On The Ning Nang Nong is the only poem by someone other than myself that I could recite.

By the time the internet was available (Yes, there really was a time before Google... Remember Asking Jeeves???) I had pretty much outgrown these poems (in public, anyway). After a pretty long hiatus, it was only really a few years ago that I started to appreciate them once again. The coming of YouTube has made funny poetry much more accessible and often proves a great way to dispel the idea that ‘poetry is boring’. That is where the poets I’d love to learn from come in. There are so many styles, I’ll no doubt cherry pick influences as we all do. I figure this is a good place to end and so, as a special treat, here are a few of my current favourites (in no particular order).

John Cooper Clarke

Wendy Cope

Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer

Elvis McGonagall

Until next time, thanks for reading. S.

4 comments:

Ashley Lister said...

Shaun,

Thank you for making me smile on a morning when I didn't feel like smiling.

Ash

Lindsay said...

I love Spike Milligan, that a fantastic start to the week, Great stuff.

Jamie Field said...

Thanks Shaun I have enjoyed your piece. After writing a series of serious (depressive) poems I'm trying to revert back to comical poetry. Through a combination of your wonderful article and seeing John Hegley perform I believe I am slowly regaining my humour.

Jamie

Damp incendiary device said...

Quim... Snigger. I'm with you Shaun. Shock value and rude words are where it's at. If you can make the audience titter (another great word - must work that one in next time) then you get my vote.

Fab post as usual :)