By Aled Harris

On a Pickle

My sister’s in the sofa.
The dog is in the floor.
My daddy’s in the telephone.
My mummy’s in the door.
I am in the TV.
The cat is in the bin.
Can you help us fix this mess?
Use “on” or “near” not “in”!

Very Very Very

“Very” is the kind of word
that frankly gets abused.
Very happy, very sad
it’s very overused.

In English we have so much choice,
so many words to say.
Yet very many people
write in very boring ways.

Very boring? No, stuff that!
Try adding more finesse:
“Super”, “proper”, “bloody”, “well”
they’re certain to impress.

“I’m super angry, proper hot
bloody old, well fat.”
Your teacher would be very pleased
if you could write like that!

“Figurative Language is Useless”

I never liked hyperbole,
it’s literally the worst.
I’d rather read a dictionary
than hyperbolic verse.

True poets don’t need metaphors
or even similes.
If readers’ minds are like locked doors,
then plain words are the keys.

And stop personifying things,
they’re happy as they are.

Cheap idioms will leave your writing
grossly under par.

Allusion’s not much better.
Did ‘the greats’ all write like that?

Lame puns leave writing wetter
than a soggy party hat.

And then we come to irony.
Oh, what a pointless tool.
The use of it, if you ask me,
just makes you look a fool!