[Thanks to Deb for inadvertently giving me the idea. Happy Thanksgiving, one and all!]
Hide their rhyming dictionary.
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Avoid inspiring them. Keep them away from clouds, Grecian urns and especially flammable tigers.
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Get a doctor’s note. “Sorry sweetheart, but I can’t listen to your poetry, today. Doctor says one more rhyme might kill me”
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Keep it a two-way street… bargain: Say, “I’ll listen to your poetry if you’ll let me kill your dog with a hammer”
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You can’t read a poem without light. Don’t pay your electric bill. If they start reading to you during the day, interrupt with the news that you saw a Grecian urn out back. This will put him into what psychologists call “ode mode”.
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If the poetry is free-verse, pretend you think the poet is just having a conversation with you and interrupt. T. S. Eliot’s wife had great success with this. “Yes, April IS a pretty cruel month. Now, let me tell you about what happened to me at the office today”
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Tell them, “The odds of you becoming a successful poet are a thousand to one”. Your poet won’t feel any better but YOU’LL be well on your way to becoming a statistician.
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Remember that you can get a ball-gag off of Amazon for less than twelve dollars.
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When they try to talk, turn your radio up to eleven. You see, most radios only go up to ten… but MINE goes up to eleven. That’s one louder.
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Pretend you cannot see or hear him. He’ll assume he’s fallen into a parallel dimension and then rush off to write a poem about it…
Potatoes and the Promise of More Potatoes 
Ok, funny but how the hell did I inspire it??? PS you forgot smash a stained glass window over his head, he’ll think inspiration has struck and run off to milk a cow
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You told me that no one would listen to your poems.
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Yes… but does Amazon sell a virtual ball gag for all the bloggers who think they’re poets? That’s what I want to know.
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Oh my, yes!! We need this. Go and invent one now!
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Sure, virtually gag poets and then you’ll have to deal with their virtual resentment…
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If only I could….
😈
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Shhh! They can HEAR you….
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I need more Grecian urns.
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I see SOMEONE’S in “ode mode”…
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Ode-ear. (Say it aloud)
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As a poet, I grieve mightily to have to admit that every one of these is spot on.
But YO-O-O-U should be taken severely to task ~ “Ode mode,” indeed! 😆👌👍
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I’m another frustrated poet… You might’ve seen some of them if you are a glutton for punishment.
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I’m new on board, but look forward to the affliction! ☺️
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“Poetry is what Milton saw when he went blind.” –Don Marquis
Apparently that was enough to discourage Milton Berle and Milton Friedman, as neither of them became a poet.
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The last time I read Paradise Lost, I read each chapter twice in a row. Did it help me understand it better? I don’t know but it DID make me feel a lot worse for NOT understanding it…
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Ignore them and they might go away.
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But, alas they never do…
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Don’t worry after New Years you won’t see me again.
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How so?
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