Introduction

This lively anthology brings together two kinds of funny: humorous poems that make you laugh or smile (funny ha-ha), and strange, surreal, witty or plain weird poems (funny peculiar). There has always been a tradition of comic and curious verse in English poetry, but in contemporary poetry the peculiar has really come into its own, as this surprising selection shows, with poems on:

1. The Opposite Sex

Love, desire, romance, sex, men & women, adultery & celibacy.

2. Matters of Life & Death

Life, growing up, growing old, bums & hips, swearing & shaving, amnesia & the end.

3. Nowt So Funny as Folk

Shops & wheelbarrows, poets & artists, jobs and jobless, war & oppression.

4. Peculiar Places

Skunks in America, England & Scotland, curries & selfies, Armageddon & colonic irrigation.

5. Sounds True

Lies & beliefs, Popes & poodles, ?re alarms, tennis, rain, static, and Country & Western music.

6. Animal Magic

Goats, sheep, chickens, yaks, cows, bison, horses, herons, chameleons & crustaceans. And people...

7. Words & Worse

Adages & proverbs, curses & clichés, slang & swearing. Anti-proverbs butter all your parsnips.