Poetry Thursday #14

Today's challenge has two parts. I think I've met it. I'll keep this at the top of the page, but scroll down for other important topics like the weather, fashion, recipes, and global warming.

Part I: Write a poem to, for, or about a poet.

Part II: Write a letter to a poet and then share it with the Poetry Thursday community on Thursday.

I'm writing about and to Wendy Cope, a popular British author and former teacher, who wrote a very brief poem about giving up smoking.

Oh Wendy Cope,
I sure do hope
you still can write
with such delight
and words so tart,
with poems that smart
and clever rhymes
just for our times.
Dear Ms. Cope,

It's difficult for me to fathom the cigarette addiction. When I go to that smoke-free place called Heaven, who will be left on Earth to nag my son who says he was hooked after that first cigarette? I shake my head because I don't understand how anyone could allow shredded, dried up vegetation burning right under the nose to control his life, health and finances. However, then I read the love poem that you wrote a few weeks after giving up smoking in 1985, and the last phrase said it all,

I haven’t finished yet--
I like you more than I would like
To have a cigarette

and I began to understand. And that's what poetry can do. You wrote, "People who have never been addicted to nicotine don’t understand what an intense love poem it is." Oh, and by the way, Ms. Cope, I also want him to find a love like that. Your poem's a two-fer.*

Thank you for your service,
Norma

*A two-fer is slang meaning "two for one." Sometimes it has no hyphen.