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Any form of verse written by anyone who doesn’t do it for a living is to be banned.
With poems posted on social media by commoners ranging from “Bad” to “Really, really fucking bone-grindingly awful”, the decision has been made to simply outlaw any poetry that hasn’t come via a publishing house.
“Basically it comes down to motivation” said Roger Allen, a 45 year-old university lecturer, “almost nobody on Facebook is writing a poem because they want to write a really good poem – they’re writing it to express their feelings about something in a way that looks clever.”
“What you get then is the opposite of the desired effect, where everyone reads the thing, rolls their eyes and then feels less sympathy than they would have if the person had simply posted a status saying ‘my cat has died and I’m sad now’.”
Local vicar, the Right Reverend Malcom Vorhees, was relieved to hear the news.
“Funerals are going to be far less tedious now.”
“People are of course free to grieve however they wish, but when they read out a poorly structured poem about their grandad that they’ve written themselves then it usually leads to me grinding my teeth.”
“I’d rather hear that poem off of Four Weddings and a Funeral for the 812th time. At least that WH Auden bloke knew how to write.”
Anyone caught writing an unauthorised stanza can expect to face a £1000 or up to 3 months in prison, depending on how awful the writing is.
“I’d have pushed for the death penalty, personally,” added Reverend Vorhees.
