Roger McGough is both a serious and humorous poet. Demonstrate this from the poems you have studied this year.

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Roger McGough is both a serious and humorous poet. Demonstrate this from the poems you have studied this year.

Roger McGough was born in Liverpool in 1957. He attended St. Mary's College and then later, went to Hull University. After his education he taught English for three years. He then joined a pop group called Scaffold and played with that group for a number of years in the early 1960's, just as the Beatle's had emerged onto the world's music scene. Since then, McGough has stepped his way up to earning the rightful reputation of being one of Britain's highly acclaimed leading poets, after writing poems since he was around seventeen years old. He received an OBE in 1997 and the Cholmondeley Award for poetry in 1998 .He now lives in Twickenham. His enjoyment of setting his views into poems is recognisable from the unique way he uses words.

Fitting some of McGough's pieces into particular categories of serious or humorous can be difficult at times as they can often have a serious topic with a twist of humour in them. A example of this is one of my favourite pieces, ' Here I am' where McGough mulls over his regrets and things he wished he had pursued from the past, not taking action upon his dreams and opportunities, he handles the subject thoughtfully and very effectively I think, but at the same time adding a touch of comedy. For example the line ' Here I am, fifty seven years of age and never having gone to work in ladies underwear' and then a more serious outlook on his life, ' I think of all the outrages unperpretated, opportunities missed'.

Roger McGough

Also another poem that fits into both categories is ' Hearts and Bones'. A touching poem about McGough's lovable but ugly aunt. There are some sad moments because the elderly lady eventually died after McGough and his sister had grown up and moved away, only to send her cards at Christmas and birthdays.

But there are funny moments to the old lady's personality, like the line ''Just one more game of snap' she'd plead and magic two toffees from behind an ear'.
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And then this sad line describing the way his aunt had tripped and fell to her death outside her house, 'The crucifix still clenched in her fist, branded into dead flesh, the sign of a cross'. The poem is sad in nice way though.

The other short poem that fits into both categories is ' 40 - love', which is a rather simple poem, but the message is put across easily. In the poem a couple are playing tennis, with the net symbolising the barrier between the two of them, as if to suggest there are problems ...

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