I love poetry. Sometimes I don't understand it but other times I get it, learn from it, am entertained by it and, occasionally and wonderfully, I laugh out loud at it. This book is called Fun With Words, Fun With Rhyme and, apart from sharing some new funny poems, I want it to be a book of encouragement to promote a lifelong love of books, bookshops and libraries. The poems can be read quietly or performed by and to enthusiastic, interactive audiences. There are those who, for whatever reason, have the ability but have not had the active encouragement to come back to the language and give it a great big hug. We can all do it. We can all write poems. We can be serious or funny, serious and funny, whatever we want to be. Our poems don't have to be literary masterpieces, don't have to be hifalutin, Nobel Prize nuggets of genius - although, if they are, good for us. The joy is in having a go, playing with words, playing with rhyme...and having fun. Start with "the fat cat sat on the mat" or wherever you like. But, have a go. Like my old friend John, tear poems out of newspapers and magazines. Keep them in your pockets to read later or to give to others.
Read poems out loud whenever you can to poetry groups, school classes, at parties - to yourself!