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Jon Stone's Mustard Poem and Lydia Bowden



I teach Jon Stone's recent poem, 'Mustard', a fourteen-line poem which cleverly ends each line with an anagram of mustard.  I found it in Lumsden's BPP 2011.  I've encouraged duplication of this form as an exercise for my Year Two undergrads in CW at Kingston University.  Lydia Bowden, pictured, a student poet, tried her hand at a version of this, with a semi-anagrammatic play on the word "daffodils" that I think is rather fun and smart.  Here it is below:



Daffodils

Putting an effect on something can’t overlook the folds
Of a photo let alone that thing you had with a sod
Once. Yes, you see flaming daffodils
Growing, wilting and stuck in the ground but doff
The effect and you’ll see it for what it is; a fad.
Because after all, you’re just a foal
Waiting to be touched up and turned into old
So don’t sit around waiting for something sad
Because there’s something beside this odd.
Perhaps you should forget daffodils and add
A little excitement to your world like your idol.
Jump out of the ground, don’t cover yourself in soil
And if your dazzling charm gets you laid
Then good, but if not just stick with your old dad.

poem by Lydia Bowden; published online with permission
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