Bringing Poetry to the Proles

I am disheartened once more. Having reached the conclusion that Yates's ('the Wine Lodge') was perhaps too grand and sophisticated an arena to begin my career as a poet, I decided that I should start at the lowest rung of society and reach out to those poor dregs at the stunted end of the cultural spectrum.

I toyed with McDonald's as a potential venue, but feared that I might meet Morgan Spurlock. Pizza Hut presented certain attractions, but I felt that with the Buffet lunch deal now being available at the weekends, the customers would be too frantic to grant my poetry the attention it deserved.

I finally settled upon Spud-u-Like in the Overgate centre, reasoning that the patrons would be so dull-witted from surfeit of carbohydrates that they would be unlikely to attack me. I entered and gently whispered my poem at an overweight couple who were cursed with lank hair and greasy skin, doubtless caused by the lank and greasy food they shovelled down their gullets. They seemed more impressed by their prawn-cocktail-filled baked potatoes than my epic account of human experience.

At their insolent lack of interest, I am afraid I quite lost my temper and struck the female on her temple with my coat sleeve. She and her partner barely acknowledged me. I gave the male a Chinese burn, but he sat placidly chewing a sliver of potato skin. I tugged the hair on the female's upper lip, but she ignored me.

I gave up. The lumpenproletariat are not to be reached with higher art forms.