In books and movies, fictional people often have a tremendous grasp of obscure poems. Someone will say one line, and another character will say, “That was Keats.”

This, of course, never happens in real life. But I do remember sitting at a meal with my grandparents, out on the farm, many years ago. I don’t know what brought it up, but the end result is that grandpa, a life-long farmer with no higher education, was quoting poetry he learned decades ago in school. Good, pretty, worthwhile poetry. 

I, with my advanced degrees, am far less sophisticated. Here is one of the only poems I can recite, a poem I learned as a teenager:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
Some poems rhyme,
This one doesn’t.

Now admit it: that’s funny. It’s not Emerson or Frost, but at least I remember it. And now you are the beneficiary.

Oh, then there are the gross Little Willy jokes. Growing up, we had a children’s book in our home with some Little Willy jokes. I don’t know what kind of demented children’s book editor thought they belonged, but hey, there they were for this impressionable elementary-age kid. And I can still remember several of them.

Willy with a taste for Gore,
Nailed his sister to the door.
Mother said with humor quaint,
“Now Willy, don’t scratch the paint.”

Willy threw his sister Nell,
Down into the drinking well.
She’s still there because it kilt her.
Now we have to buy a filter.

Willie saw some dynamite,
Couldn’t understand it quite;
Curiosity never pays:
It rained Willie seven days.

And that, folks, is why reading RandomPokes and being exposed to my cranial leakages holds such socially redeeming value.