The Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest

Chel Owens

Good morning (for me) and welcome to the 32nd Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest!

Most of the time, I suggest you follow the advice I give in my how-to. This is because I normally seek clichés, mis-meters, and overly rhyming.

This week, however, use the following specifications:

  1. The Topic is to write a Little Willie poem. The name comes from a way of writing poetry that was popular in the early 1900s.
    From A Treasury of Laughter*:
    “Every paper began to print ‘ruthless rhymes,’ and every contributor tried to invent a catastrophe more gory in event and more nonchalant in effect than its predecessor. The favorite ‘hero’ was Willie, and although other characters sometimes crept into the quatrains, the terse lines became known as ‘Little Willies.'”
    I included three of the tamest examples at the end of this post.
  2. The Length is about four lines, a quatrain. Some were written as limericks or a double quatrain; but most were short, clever, and darkly humorous.
  3. Rhyming is imperative. These poems usually follow an A/A/B/B pattern.
  4. As I said, this week the poems are terrible because of their message. I expect darker tones, questionable humor, and stretches into creative venues writers never knew they had. If you’re sensitive, stay away. If you’re twisted, come on in.
  5. One might be tempted to up the Rating, but this is the sort of clever writing that makes readers uncomfortable but stays in the PG range.

You have till 8:00 a.m. MST next Friday (July 5) to submit a poem.

Use the form below if you want to be anonymous for a week.

For a more social experience, include your poem or a link to it in the comments.

Have fun!

 

three-monkeys-1212621_1920

 

Willie fell down the elevator —
Wasn’t found till six days later.
Then the neighbors sniffed, “Gee whizz!
What a spoiled child Willie is!”

Little Willie from the mirror
Sucked the mercury all off,
Thinking, in his childish error,
It would cure the whooping cough.
At the funeral his mother,
Weeping, said to Mrs. Brown:
” ‘Twas a chilly day for Willie
When the mercury went down!”

Little Willie;
Pair of skates;
Hole in the ice;
Golden gates.

 

*Quote and poem examples taken from A Treasury of Laughter, Simon and Schuster, New York, ©1946

Photo credit:
Image by Robert Fotograf from Pixabay

43 thoughts on “The Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest”

  2. Little Willie took a swim
    Thinking the piranhas wouldn’t eat him
    Don’t you think he was awfully silly
    To assume a fish didn’t like Willie?
    –
    If you read that in a PG-13 (or R) rated way instead of a G rated, don’t blame me 😉
    –
    Stuck in tar Willie waved
    To the steamroller on the road just paved
    The driver blindly sat
    As Willie was made real flat

    Liked by 2 people

  6. Pingback: The Gerbils did it – A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent.
  8. Pingback: The Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest-Little Willie – Ruth Scribbles
  9. Pingback: Terrible Poetry Contest – Lovewillbringustogether_s Weblog
  13. Pingback: Terrible Poetry Contest – This Time It’s Personal!! – Lovewillbringustogether_s Weblog
  14. Pingback: Weekly Terrible Poetry – A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent.

  16. These are my warm-ups, to prepare me for this most prestigious of contests. I hope you don’t mind me sharing them. The real deal is at the bottom.

    Dragon

    If I described the beat of its wings descending to the ground,
    the claws, the teeth, the flames that brought Willie down,
    I would sound like a lie, even silly,
    Alas, poor Willie.

    A Helping Hand

    Poor Willie said
    he wished he was dead.
    I wished the same
    so I took aim.

    Who, Me?

    I told him not to smoke your fags
    and why would I dip his glad-rags
    in paraffin? It wasn’t me, dad.
    Can I have Willie’s iPad?.

    Naturally, my serious entry is the one that breaks the four line rule…

    Willie’s Mayo

    Willie loved red, he dreamed of red
    and all the thoughts inside his head
    he drew on walls in crimson crayon
    (He even mixed red in with the mayon-
    Naise). While dripping red ink in a nearby well
    he tripped, and heavily, in he fell.
    As from the depths his corpse was raised,
    Willie’s bloodied skull left his mother unfazed.
    “I see he’s rejecting the red from his head
    so it’s OK to chuck out his mayo,” she said.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. Pingback: The Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest – Little Willie – Twenty Four
  19. Pingback: Smokin’ | Thru Violet's Lentz
  20. Pingback: #Terriblepoetry – Little Willie poems – Robbie's inspiration
  21. Pingback: Terrible Poetry Contest – A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent.

Comments are closed.