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Often poets strive to cultivate the pained visage of a tortured artiste and spend their hours holed up in their study trying to come up with the masterpiece that will fully express their inner pain. This is fine and there have been some fantastic poems that have been born out of dark emotions and painful personal experiences. However, poetry does not always have to be serious and does not have to aspire to such lofty ambitions. There can be great fun and satisfaction from writing a poem that is humorous and which makes other people laugh. The poem might even be completely silly, especially if it's aimed at children.

Here's an example of a silly (and hopefully funny) poem that I wrote some time ago.

"Not cute and fluffy"

I'm not cute and fluffy but that's okay

Cos I wouldn't want to be anyway.

I'm a little overweight but listen hey

I'm a Rhino, short tempered, so watch what you say!

Kids tend to enjoy funny poems and the nice thing is that writing humorous poems presents an opportunity for the poet to free the child within and ignore the pressure of having to adhere to poetry's sometimes restrictive conventions of form and metre.

It's not only kids who like humour in their poetry, however, and humorous poems can actually be a way to bring people into the poetry fold who might never otherwise have got interested in poetry. An example of a poem that can't help but make you smile is Benjamin Zephaniah's ""Talking Turkeys"":http://www.benjaminz ephaniah.com/content/rhyming.p hp about how you should shun eating turkey at Christmas. Check it out I'm sure you'll like it!

I used to be a member of a vibrant poetry website (which is now sadly defunct) that ran a weekly challenge, where everyone would try to write a poem on a topic that someone would suggest. This would result in a whole range of styles, from haiku, to humorous, to serious poems of epic length. The humorous poems always made up quite a high percentage of the submitted poems and were usually well received. Here's an example of one that I wrote, when I think the theme was "global warming".

"Ug and his invention"

Ug was angry.

With furious abandonment he whacked the flint onto the rock

And lo,

Behold, a spark did fly

That lit the parched tinder strewn nearby.

A fire spread throughout the land

A tale of Ug's invention grand.

See him, yes him, no eyebrows man

He wields wild magic with his hands.

He separates us from the beasts

Whose flesh we now cook before we eats!'

And, digesting food in quicker time

That left more hours for soul

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