Write a Poem About the News Day

The rather marvellous Kate Fox has incited loads of people to write a poem inspired by the news. I don't know if Write a Poem About the News Day is an annual thing but I'd be quite up for it if it is. I've been finding it tricky to write at the moment so any excuse to get something started and finished quickly is helping to keep me ticking over.

I noticed that most of the poems seemed to rhyme so I thought I'd give it a bash too (I couldn't quite combine humour and rhyme though... I'm taking baby steps). So I settled on a villanelle - not exactly the easy option but I found the challenge of sticking to such a rigid form helped to focus on a broad subject.

A Beautiful World

There’s old news and new news, laden with doom
headlines scream out a recurring nightmare;
paint a beautiful world in colours of gloom.

Articles comment on the downside of boom,
highlight the illusion of fiscal flair.
There’s old news and new news, laden with doom.

A Labour party with need of new broom
can’t rescue us from this mire of despair,
paint a beautiful world in colours of gloom.

Threatened injunctions might make racists fume
but a sense of futility hangs in the air,
there’s old news and new news, laden with doom.

A remembered young woman in a garden tomb
her living smile counters the killers stare.
Paint a beautiful world in colours of gloom.

And finally... good news pushed out, there’s just no room,
It’s no longer the point to inform but to scare.
There’s old news and new news, laden with doom
paint a beautiful world in colours of gloom.

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