Poetry Friday -The Grammar Police

A fair bit of grammatical word play in this poem. For me, word play remains a critical part of writing poetry. I recall a wonderful story of two retired teachers, who regularly met for coffee. They both carried a stick of chalk with them just in case they had to correct the spelling, or grammar on various cafe noticeboards.

As Ralph Fletcher wrote in his book, Pyrotechnics On The Page-

'Like most writers I know, I have always had an abiding interest in words for their own sake.'

I'm with Ralph on this. I indulge in wordplay for a number of conscious reasons. When I write like this, I am motivated by a need to be:

Playful with words
A bit surprising
Deliberately irreverent
Humorous

Hope you enjoy this poem on Poetry Friday.

~~The Grammar Police~~

Anna Gram thought her teacher

Miss Anthrop

Was an undercover agent

-for the Grammar Police.

Anna feared for the words huddled in her notebook.

…maybe her nouns were common

And possessive

Were her verbs passive?

Did her adjectives demonstrate?

She knew some of her pronouns had trouble reaching agreement

-and her infinitives had spilt.

She suspected some of her ellipses may have been guilty of having an extra dot.

She occasionally misplaced her modifiers

And far too many of her sentences were simple and this gave her a complex.

She felt her vowels rumble and her colon collapse.

Her hopes had come to a full stop.

There, their, they’re

Said her friend, Con Junction.

I will hide her red pen…

Alan j Wright

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