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

Comments

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