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Poetry Forum

Helena Nelson

What is poetry for? (Maitreyabhandu)

It’s for weddings
and funerals
and reading on the train
and for taking a person out of herself
and bringing her back more sane.

It’s for children
and lunatics
and chimney-sweeps and punks
It’s for teachers
and preachers
and politicians and drunks.

It’s for dinner
and afternoon tea
and marvellous midnight snacks.
It’s for cravings
and ravings
and low-poetry attacks.

It’s for four o’clock
for four of us
and for five o’clock
for five.
It’s for fortitude
and forums
for formalists to survive.

It’s for all we know intelligent
and rarely less than clever.
You can get some
for nothing
and remember it
forever.


Helena Nelson

From Down With Poetry! (Glenrothes: Happenstance, 2016). Reproduced by permission of the author.

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Poetry By Heart Scotland post-1914 reading poetry suitable for children writing poetry
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Helena Nelson

Helena Nelson was born in Cheshire, and now lives in Fife. She is a poet and publisher, the founder editor of HappenStance Press.
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