Poems and Politics - TWAT - John Cooper Clarke

I love poetry, and I can recite a number of my favourite poems by rote. I can quote chunks of others, and if I feel the need to make a poetic quotation to support a point I have sufficient knowledge of poetry to enable me to find appropriate quotes.

Many of the poems that I know by rote were learned for the purpose of competing in Eisteddfodau. The ones that I remember best aren't the ones that were drilled, they are the ones who's meanings and structure were explained in detail before we even got onto learning them.

Poems learned in context and taught with enthusiasm can be a lifelong pleasure. Poems taught by rote because the National Curriculum says they must be taught could be counterproductive and put kids off poetry for life. So I give a half cautious welcome to Michael Gove's pronouncement that Children as young as five will be expected to learn and recite poetry by heart in a major overhaul of the national curriculum for schools in England. If it is done well English kids will have a huge benefit, if it is done badly English poetry will suffer a generation of despair.

I sincerely hope it's done well. If not, perhaps this poem by John Cooper Clarke might be the poem Mr Gove will be most associated with:

TWAT

Like a Night Club in the morning, you're the bitter end
Like a recently disinfected shit-house, you're clean round the bend.
You give me the horrors
too bad to be true
All of my tomorrow's
are lousy coz of you.

You put the Shat in Shatter
Put the Pain in Spain
Your germs are splattered about
Your face is just a stain

You're certainly no raver, commonly known as a drag.
Do us all a favour, here... wear this polythene bag.

You're like a dose of scabies,
I’ve got you under my skin.
You make life a fairy tale... Grimm!
People mention murder, the moment you arrive.
I’d consider killing you if I thought you were alive.
You've got this slippery quality,
it makes me think of phlegm,
and a dual personality
I hate both of them.

Your bad breath, vamps disease, destruction, and decay.
Please, please, please, please, take yourself away.
Like a death in a birthday party,
you ruin all the fun.
Like a sucked and spat our Smartie,
you're no use to anyone.
like the shadow of the guillotine
on a dead consumptive's face.
Speaking as an outsider,
what do you think of the human race

You went to a progressive psychiatrist.
He recommended suicide...
before scratching your bad name off his list,
and pointing the way outside.

You hear laughter breaking through, it makes you want to fart.
You’re heading for a breakdown,
better pull yourself apart.
Your dirty name gets passed about when something goes amiss.
Your attitudes are platitudes,
just make me wanna piss.

What kind of creature bore you
Was is some kind of bat
They can’t find a good word for you,
but I can...
TWAT