# Reading > Poems, Poets, and Poetry >  Pam Ayres' Poetry

## Scheherazade

In an attempt to prove my students that poetry does not have to be 'boring', I have decided to use this poem in one of my classes (Most of my students in that class are mothers/housewives) but I don't know who the poet is. Can anyone help me? Thanks.


Heaps of Stuff

How I wish that I was tidy
How I wish that I was neat
How I wish I was methodical
Like others down out street.
I tried to stem the rising tide
I tried to hold it back
But I have been the victim
Of a heap of stuff attack.

Yes, heaps of stuff come creeping,
They clutter up the hall.
And heaps of stuff are softly
Climbing halfway up the wall.
At each end of the staircase
Is a giant heap, a stack;
One to carry up the stairs
And one to carry back.

In a heap of stuff invasion
They settle everywhere -
They grovel on the lino
They tower on the chair.
You're searching for a jacket,
"Is it in here?" you shout,
And, opening the cupboard door,
A heap of stuff falls out.

But heaps are many-faceted
And heaps are multi-faced
And what a heap is made of
Will depend on where it's placed.
Now if it's in the passage
It is mostly boots and shoes
And if it's on the sofa
It is magazines and news.

If it's in the shed
It's broken propagating frames
And if it's in the bathroom
Well, it's best to say no names,
And if it's in the bedroom -
Your own and not the guest's -
The heap of stuff is mostly made
Of socks and shirts and vests.

For a heap is indestructible,
It's something you can't fight.
If you split it up by day
It joins back up at night.
So cunningly positioned
as from room to room you trek,
Increasing all the chances
That you trip and break your neck.

But step into my parlour
Now I've forced the door ajar;
I'll excavate an easy chair -
Just cling there where you are.
And together we'll survey it
Till our eyes they feast enough
On the tidiest home in England
Underneath the heaps of stuff.
.

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## mono

Hiya, Scher. I did some research and found the poet, who wrote "Heaps of Stuff," as Pam Ayres.

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## Scheherazade

Mono, you are a star! KitKat?  :Biggrin: 

How did you find it? I did search the net and couldn't find anything...  :Eek:

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## mono

I would love a KitKat, thank you.
A google.com search of the title found nothing significant, so I copied and pasted the first two lines of the poem in quotation marks, along with the title in separate quotes, and came to one result - a strange personal website that just happened to feature the poem.

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## Scheherazade

Thank you once again! 

*gives Mono 10 KitKats*  :Biggrin:

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## Miranda

I'd say kitkats all round! I have never heard this poem before but I think it's brilliant! 

Miranda

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## mono

What oddly hilarious poetry Pam Ayres writes! After performing more searching, I managed to find this additional poem/song:

The Wonderbra

I bought myself a Wonderbra
For fourteen ninety nine,
It looked so good on the model girl's chest,
And I hoped it would on mine,
I took it from the packaging
And when I tried it on,
The Wonderbra restored to me
All I believed had gone

Chorus:
Let's all salute the Wonderbra,
The Wonderbra, the Wonderbra,
Let's all salute the Wonderbra,
For fourteen ninety-nine.

It gave me such a figure,
I can't believe it's mine,
I showed it to my husband
And it made his eyeballs shine,
And when I served the breakfast,
The kids cried out, 'Hooray!
Here comes our darling mother,
with her bosom on a tray!'

I didn't really need one,
my present bra, it's true,
Had only been in constant use
Since nineteen eighty-two,
But the silhouette I dreamed about,
Is mine, is mine at last,
And builders on the scaffolding,
Drop off as I walk past

Chorus:
Singing .. let's all salute the Wonderbra,
The Wonderbra, the Wonderbra,
Let's all salute the Wonderbra
For fourteen ninety-nine!

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## Scheherazade

:Biggrin: 
That is really good! Maybe I can use that one in my class too. I am sure it will inspire some of my students to give poetry a try themselves. Thank you mono!  :Smile: 
Anyway, I gotta go... Some shopping to do!  :Wink: 

*edit*

I have stumbled upon this one:

OH, I WISH I'D LOOKED AFTER MY TEETH
by
Pam Ayres

Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth, 
And spotted the perils beneath,
All the toffees I chewed, 
And the sweet sticky food,
Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth.

I wish I'd been that much more willin' 
When I had more tooth there than fillin'
To pass up gobstoppers, 
From respect to me choppers
And to buy something else with me shillin'.

When I think of the lollies I licked, 
And the liquorice allsorts I picked,
Sherbet dabs, big and little, 
All that hard peanut brittle,
My conscience gets horribly pricked.

My Mother, she told me no end, 
"If you got a tooth, you got a friend"
I was young then, and careless, 
My toothbrush was hairless,
I never had much time to spend.

Oh I showed them the toothpaste all right, 
I flashed it about late at night,
But up-and-down brushin' 
And pokin' and fussin'
Didn't seem worth the time... I could bite!

If I'd known I was paving the way,
To cavities, caps and decay,
The murder of fiIlin's 
Injections and drillin's
I'd have thrown all me sherbet away.

So I lay in the old dentist's chair,
And I gaze up his nose in despair,
And his drill it do whine, 
In these molars of mine,
"Two amalgum," he'll say, "for in there."

How I laughed at my Mother's false teeth,
As they foamed in the waters beneath,
But now comes the reckonin' 
It's me they are beckonin'
Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth.

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## subterranean

The above would be appropriate for your students' kids I suppose.

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## Jay

lol, not really, Sub  :Smile: . It begins with
Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth,
...
Can't see a kid saying that or thinking that, it's told from the present looking back as the past. Only kid who would say that is a kid who's just sitting in the dentist's chair having the dentist drilling holes into his/her teeth  :Biggrin: ... which reminds me, should soon see my dentist, he's sure as hell missing drilling holes into my teeth, lol. Geez I'm crazy today. Ok, crazier than usually  :Tongue:

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## subterranean

It's call prevention Jay..before it's too late.

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## Scheherazade

Meanwhile I have found another of Pam's poems  :Biggrin: 

*YES, I'LL MARRY YOU*  

Yes, I'll marry you, my dear. 
And here's the reason why. 
So I can push you out of bed 
When the baby starts to cry. 
And if we hear a knocking 
And it's creepy and it's late, 
I hand you the torch you see,
And you investigate. 

Yes I"ll marry you, my dear, 
You may not apprehend it, 
But when the tumble-drier goes 
It's you that has to mend it. 
You have to face the neighbour 
Should our labrador attack him, 
And if a drunkard fondles me 
It's you that has to whack him. 

Yes, I'll marry you, 
You're virile and you're lean, 
My house is like a pigsty 
You can help to keep it clean. 
That sexy little dinner 
Which you served by candlelight, 
As I do chipolatas, 
You can cook it every night!!! 

It's you who has to work the drill 
And put up curtain track, 
And when I've got PMT it's you who gets the flak, 
I do see great advantages, 
But none of them for you,
And so before you see the light,
I DO, I DO, I DO!!

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## Jay

hehehehehe, funny  :Tongue:

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## shortysweetp

i loved this poems. she is really funny  :Smile:  thanks for introducing the poems scheherazade  :Smile:

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## shortysweetp

has anyone else read her poems?

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## mono

Not long after the creation of this thread, I happened to stumble upon Pam Ayres _The Works_, a collection of her poems, at a nearby very large bookstore. I paged through it extensively, had a few good laughs, but, unfortunately, could not buy it, as the price seemed a little steep for being an imported book.

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## Shadow007

I have always loved Pay Ayres, particularly her poems "The Should Have Asked my Husband" and I'm going to kill my husband". I remember as a child a peom about Knitting - knit one, purl one drop one. Love her DVDs of concerts too. :Smile5:

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## wordist

I know these are old posts, but can anyone find Pam's poem about frog migration. I had a collection of her poems when I was a girl and still find them hilarious, but I have lost the book and can't find this one in the new one I bought.
She's brilliant and her poems are so cleverly constructed.

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