I Don'T Need No Stinking Rules Poem by Michael Pruchnicki

That's what the poetaster said!
You can ask anyone who was there!

He told me that I was an unskilled versifier-
a guy who memorizes a pattern
and beats it to bloody death!

I'm capable of producing nothing much
but doggerel and worse,
garden variety verse
like little old ladies
in tennis shoes!

I blow a big brass trumpet
of no renown,
mistaking sound
and fury for sense!

How true, I thought!
You can always tell a poet,
but you can't tell him much!