Quatrains for the Writing Life

by J. Patrick Lewis

Twit

Among the literati of the Thames,
Sir Osbert and Sacheverell were gems.
But still, there was the whiff of counterfeit… well,
Their stuffy sister Edith didn’t Sitwell.

Dust Jackets

On litrachoor’s exalted shore, God knows,
The mavens mind their pure and priceless prose,
Refusing to revise a single verb—
Yet no one seems embarrassed by a blurb.

Query Letter

Could you please say if my poems fit
The tenor of your little mag,
That literary gem, to wit,
The Heart and Boneshop of the Rag?

The Difference

Academic exegeses
Labor over which is which.
Simple. Verse is quick and easy.
Poetry’s a bitch.

J. Patrick Lewis has published over fifty children’s poetry books to date, with Knopf, Atheneum, Penguin Putnam, Harcourt, Little, Brown, Creative Editions, National Geographic, Chronicle and others. His poems have appeared in The Gettysburg Review, The New England Review, New Letters, the new renaissance, Kansas Quarterly, The Santa Barbara Review, Fine Madness, and many others.