MIKE BARFIELD

FUNNY POETRY!



I have had a passion for reading, writing and performing funny poetry since I was a child and first came across the works of Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, Dr Seuss, and Spike Milligan.

I also very much enjoy sharing this passion through performances, school visits and workshops. Please get in touch if you would like me to come and appear anywhere, complete with my large crate of poetry props!

As well as performing, I am also a regular contributor to the Poetry-Workshop-In-A-day sessions run as an outreach exercise to local schools by the wonderful Ledbury Poetry Festival. You can find out more about them and their brilliant work here.

As well as writing my funny non-fiction titles, I have also had many poems selected for inclusion in some very smart poetry anthologies, including those edited by Brian Moses, Gaby Morgan, Pie Corbett, AF Harrold, Graham Denton and others.



My poem Toast Story found its way into my friend Andy Seed's Silly Book of Side-Splitting Stuff - a book that then went on to win the Blue Peter Award for the Best Book with Facts. Like most of my funny poems, Toast Story is made for performing boldly with lots of audience participation.

You can see me performing a version of it here.

For some reason, I find food a very 'fruitful' subject for poetry. This poem about cheese is incredibly silly, and a bit of a tongue-twister too!

The recent poetry anthology Midnight Feasts, compiled by the great bearded genius that is AF Harrold, has two more of my food verses in it. One about rock cakes, one about the oddness of the word 'aubergine'.

You can find out more about the book here.

These titles also have poems in them:



I was very lucky to have Brian choose ONE of my poems for the cover of this collection! I also have work in this more recent collection of his:



Here's another:



And I'm very flattered that the poet and author Graham Denton chose no less than five of my poems for inclusion in his sports-themed collection When Granny Won Olympic Gold.



All these anthologies should still be available to buy from bookshops, or check out your school or local library.

Meanwhile here's a poem for free, on me. It is, of course, about food - sort of…

I LIKE CHIPS WITH EVERYTHING

I like chips with everything.
I like chips with anvils.
I like chips with acrobats
And amulets and ant-hills.

I like chips with bandicoots.
I like chips with beaches.
I like chips with blips and bling
And baggy buckskin breeches.

I like chips with chocolate.
I like chips with cheeses.
I like chips with chimneypots
And chintz and chimpanzees-es

I like chips with dufflebags.
I like chips with diptychs.
I like chips with dado rails
And dirty diesel dipsticks.

I like chips with esplanades.
I like them with eclipses.
I like chips with Ee-ba-gum
And emus and ellipses.

I like chips with fripperies.
I like chips with foghorns.
I like chips with flittermice
And figs and flags and frogspawn.

I like chips with guttersnipes.
I like chips with gannets.
I like chips with gramophones
And grot and grit and granite.

I like chips with hippodromes.
I like chips with haddock.
I like chips with happy hens
All humming in a hammock.

I like chips with Inuits.
I like chips with insects.
I like chips with irate imps,
An ibex and an index.

I like chips with jackanapes.
I like chips with jockeys.
I like chips with jumbalaya,
Joists and jabberwockeys.

I like chips with kettledrums.
I like chips with kisses.
I like chips with kinkajous,
And Malaysian knives called krisses.

I like chips with licorice.
I like chips with loopholes.
I like chips with lorikeets
And liverworts and loo-rolls.

I like chips with monkeynuts.
I like chips with midgets.
I like chips with marmosets
And mitts with missing digits.

I like chips with numismatists.
I like chips with nougat.
I like chips with a noisy noise
Like ‘neeh-naah neeh-naah, nooh-naah’.

I like chips with ombudsmen.
I like chips with outlaws.
I like chips with overcoats
And in-laws in them outdoors.

I like chips with poltergeists.
I like chips with prizes.
I like chips with pachyderms
And hot puff pastry pies-es.

I like chips with quadrangles.
I like chips with quinces.
I like chips with queasy queens
With quiffy, quibbly princes.

I like chips with ramekins.
I like chips with rhubarb.
I like chips with rubbish dumps
And rat-and-raspberry roulade.

I like chips with sherbert dips.
I like chips with Susan.
I like chips with silversmiths
And just my socks and shoes on.

I like chips with telescopes.
I like chips with towels.
I like chips with trilobites
And trumps and tramps and trowels.

I like chips with unicorns
And up-umbrellas too.
I like chips with underdogs,
And I like chips with U.

I like chips with venison
And vinegar in vats.
I like chips with vibraphones
And vicious vampire bats.

I like chips with walruses.
I like chips with whispers.
I like chips with wagon-wheels.
Cats likes chips with Whiskas.

I like chips with X-rays, yachts,
And Zanzibaran birds...
They say that chips aren’t good for you –
But they’ve taught me lots of words.

Feeling hungry after that?