LesleyScoble.com

The Poet of the Week for this week’s W3 Prompt #207 is Sally and her prompt is called Inspired by a Poet. 

Details of Sally’s prompt: Inspired by a poet

I invite you to spend some time with the poets who stay with you—the ones who shape how we read, write, and see.

Choose one or more of the following:

1. Write a poem in honor of, or with a nod to, another poet. You can even name them in your title, like Hats Off to Mother Goose or The Road Traveled with Robert Frost. 
2. Borrow a single line from a favorite poet and weave it into your poem. Just one line—see where it takes you. 
3. Try writing in the style of a poet you admire. A Shakespearean sonnet, no capitals for e.e. cummings, or a small, vivid moment in the spirit of William Carlos Williams.

Keep your poem to 20 lines or fewer.

Let yourself play a little—echo, bend, or reimagine what inspires you.

For Sally’s prompt I first thought I’d turn to my usual favourite, Shakespeare — but I’d already written Where’s My Sense of Humour this week, not for a prompt but because I’ve been in a trough of misery, listening to the news and worrying about everything from the natural world to whether Arsenal might miss out on silverware. My sense of humour had completely vanished.

Where’s My Sense of Humour doesn’t follow any of the rules of the prompt — other than borrowing an interpreted line from the French poet Jacques Prévert.

I hope you enjoy my miserable poem and the accompanying song nonetheless.

Where’s My Sense of Humour?

Where’s my sense of humour?
I don’t know where it is
it’s left me all alone
it’s gone

without it
I am no one

without it
I am done

Where’s my sense of humour?
I don’t know where it is

If you see it anywhere—
be it far or near—
please send it home to me
I’m waiting for it here

I’ve lost it
I don’t know where it is
without it there’s
no sun
no smile
or fun

instead of happiness
b’gad
I’m deeply
sad and woebegone

I had it only yesterday 
since then
it went astray

without my humour
I am fraught
tied up
up tight
all taut

I’m all at sea
in melancholy

If you find it anywhere
in your home—
a cupboard—
on a chair

Please send it back to me
where—
I will 
wait
wait if necessary for years
until
I hold it
safe within my skin—

and forever after
you will hear
me smiling
bucketloads
of laughter

please find
my sense of humour
and bring it to me here


—Lesley Scoble, April 2026

Audio — Where’s My Sense of Humour? — Song 🎶

---

Why I broke the rules

The prompt for this week’s W3 challenge was to write a poem in the style of your selected poet, within twenty lines. I’m afraid I failed on both counts. I didn’t keep to twenty lines, nor did I consciously write in the style of any particular poet.

To resolve this difficulty, I decided to reverse the situation: “If Mohammed won’t come to the mountain, the mountain must come to Mohammed” (apologies for any misquotation). Turning Sally’s prompt on its head, I asked Microsoft Copilot whether there might be poets whose work echoes the style of my poem.

Its reply was both polite and encouraging. It suggested that the poem didn’t feel derivative but rather seemed to sit within a lineage — a blend of:

• minimalism
• wry self-mockery
• emotional clarity
• chant-like repetition
• domestic surrealism (losing one’s humour as though it were a misplaced household object)

According to AI, these qualities place the poem in several poetic “neighbourhoods,” rather than beside any single direct influence. The closest affinities, it proposed, were with Wendy Cope, Billy Collins, Roger McGough, and Jacques Prévert. I must admit I wasn’t previously familiar with these poets — though I’m delighted now to make their acquaintance.

In an attempt to observe at least one element of the W3 prompt, I borrowed a line from Poem Hunter’s interpretation of To Paint the Portrait of a Bird — “wait / wait if necessary for years” after Jacques Prévert.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My gratitude to Sally for her wonderful prompt — and my apologies for going off prompt and breaking the rules. I enjoyed the exercise of trying to fit my poem into your prompt — and discovering new to me poets.
Thank you as always, David, for your constant encouragement and inspiration.
And last but not least, my thanks to you, the reader, for spending this time with me.

W3 Prompt #207: Wea’ve Written Weekly