IGNORANCE AND BLASPHEMY

The guy who wrote the amusing hoggerel below

died yesterday – and was promptly compared

with Blake and Yeats. So the trendies won't agree

that it's even worse than The Lake Isle of Innisfree.

I am in luv wid a hedgehog
I’ve never felt this way before
I have luv fe dis hedgehog
An everyday I luv her more an more,

She lives by de shed
Where weeds and roses bed
An I just want de world to know
She makes me glow.

I am in luv wid a hedgehog
She’s making me hair stand on edge,
So in luv wid dis hedgehog
An her friends
Who all live in de hedge

She visits me late
An eats off Danny’s plate
But Danny’s a cool tabby cat
He leaves it at dat.

I am in luv wid a hedgehog,
She’s gone away so I must wait
But I do miss my hedgehog
Everytime she goes to hibernate.

– Benjamin Zephaniah,
recommended as England's Poet Laureate
by fellow-intellectual Tony Blair,
but not appointed.