Some poets' names are perfectly suited to consumerism, consumption and product placement.

Here are a few to set the tone and start the list:

Coca-Coleridge
Wii Wordsworth
Alfred Lord TenaLadyson
Basil Bunting

Oh what fun! How about...

Because your Wordsworth it
Byron get one free
Ezra Poundsavers
Kentuky-fried Keats
John Cooper Clarks shoes
GM Crops Hopkins
DFS-hakespeare
John Donne the bookmaker
Rabbie CoBurns Port
Kiplings excedingly good poems
Robert Frosties in the aisle less travelled
Cadbury's Blake -mmm
Father Ted Hughes

Pick'n'Mox
Green & Blackburns

Vidal Sassoon

Wilfrid Alpen

ee Cummings condoms.

Dorothy Parker pens.

Elizabeth Barrett Brownings for clay homes.

Alan Ginster (Stomach Howl -- he ate all the pies)
John Clairol

Surely it's:
Elizabeth Bisto Browning?

And the generic savoury sauce/poet we pass over to reach the Bisto is,
Robert Gravy

Colonel (Malcolm) Saunder's Scouse-House fried poetry?

And whilst we're at it...
Julian Jordonaire
Dave Morgan's Rum
Francine's French Fancies
Bulls-eye Kelly
Janet Ramsden's Fish & Chips
Dermot Glennon-fiddick - fine scotch whisky
Simon Rennies

Oh là là - j'aime Francine's French Fancies... ; )

Ben Johnson's Baby Powder
John Milton's Baby Fluid
Shelley Oil
Sir Walter Raleigh Bicycles
George (S)Herbert
Sir John Suckling Pig (bit archaic, that one)
Andrew Marvell Comics
John Fry, Crisp 'n' Dryden
Alexander Pope-on-a-Rope
Christopher Smarties
Oliver Terry's All Goldsmith
Hannah More4
Charlotte Smith and Wesson
Phillis WheatlyBix
William Blake7
Ralph Waldo Emerson Lake and Palmer
Edward Lear Jet
The Brontes (commercial enough already)
Lewis Carroll Singers (grabbin' little bastards)
A. E. Housman Ltd (estate agents)
Robinson Jefferson Starship
Wilfrid Owing Ltd (Debt Collectors)
Ogden Nash Get Smash
Stephen Spend Spend Spender
Barbara Guest House
Allan Gordon's Ginsberg
John Hollander Sauce
Geoffrey Blossom Hill
Les Murray Mints
John 7Updike
Charles Wrightguard
Carol Ann Duffy The Vampire Slayer
Simon Armitage Shanks

Er....Rennie Tablets?

Let us not forget...
Pete's Queeny Driven Drama Theatre Company ; )

Roam Paul Blackburns satanic mills
whilst eating Janet Ramsdens fish and chips.
You might need a Rennie tablet afterwards though.

Andrew Marvell Dried Milk
Christopher Smarties (For I Will Consider Giving Marvel To My Cat Jeoffrey)
T.J.Hughes
Eugene Iontesco

This is a laugh, right enough, and very clever and witty you've all been.

But there is a serious side to advertising and brands tyranny that is in all our faces daily. I often think a great deal of creative energy and money is WASTED on advertising ... think of all those crappy car adverts.

And for what purpose? To stimulate consumer addiction ... very unworthy, very unpoetic.

I urge all those well paid folk who work as creatives and copywriters in the evil advertising industry to cast of their shackles, quit their jobs, and start writing poetry instead.

Then they can be noble, like us, and just as poor.

(Can't imagine there will be a stamped to join us somehow.)

Someone wiser than me once said you can't call any of the images or clever words used by the advertising industry "art" - because the motivation for their creation is never artistic; rather it is to sell things, and to and get people addicted to consumer goods and vanity services. Therefore such "art" is phoney.

It is not art. It is "phoney art".

Or "phart" for short.

Steve "Ronald McDonald" Regan

If you are driving down a country road and you pass several farms or smallholdings selling eggs and one of the boards in particular catches your eye because it has been painted nicely or expresses the quality of its product in a more expansive or even dare I say it poetic way you are possibly more likely to stop and buy your eggs from that particular establishment and that is all well and good because they have taken the time and trouble to promote their goods in a way that is most likely to attract the consumer.

That is the basis of advertising.

So what?

If you don't want to buy, don't buy.

I wish to go in the opposite direction to Steve's call for defection. If any advertising company wants to offer me a job, I'll take it. I reckon I'd be pretty good at it too.

Advertising isn't evil. It's just communication.

Hi Steve

Is'nt the objective of art i.e. painting, sculpture, poetry communication with others...in an effort to convince or conjole...advertising ..take your WOL post image..and compare that to the guy who stared back at you in the mirror this morning??

Poetry is advertising
Art is advertising
Commercial dexterity is a realism...and so is poetry.

Gus, the guy who stared back at me in the bathroom mirror was MUCH more handsome than my profile pic.

As for your other points, I'm afraid I'm too thick to understand them. My brain has been turned to mush by years of advertising.

Steve 'The Sweeney' Regan,

So you eschew all small ads, you don't advertise your poetry evenings, you picket the public noticeboards in the library, at the post office and news agents, you abhor the lost and missing ads, you sluice off the pheremones that advertise your availability to prospective love interests?

And I did work as a copywriter but was sacked -- I'm proud to say --for being bizarre.

And Siren, it is a well known FACT that about 90 per cent of those who work in advertising are SATANISTS!!

Moxy, I aven't had me dinner yet, no wonder I'm narky.

Haha -- yes, Regan's not had his dinner, has he?

Well get a butty or sommat.

Um, what's that about satanists? I used to rescue daddy long legs out of the company swimming pool which I unicyled round. Does that make me evil?

I'll be doin better than that. I'm goping to t'cheap pub in Chester for wine and pie and chips! Oh, bloody hell, I've just advertised "t'cheap pub" brand!

I was like an earlier Nathan Barley but in an animal (and insect) rights way.
I had a ventriloquist's dummy which I took into meetings and face painted.

Was that so very very wrong?

You've just advertised Chester

I'm sensing you've been very naughty indeed, Moxy, and need to be tutored in righteousness and disciplined.

And ventriloquists' dummies are, errr, unspeakably evil.

Moxy, I'm shocked! I'm a founder member of 'Freedom for Vents Dummies' and I long for the day when they can wander free in their natural environment without nefarious hands stuck up their jacksies!

Daddy-long-legs (Craneflies) contain enough poison in their bodies to kill a human being but have no teeth or sting and therefore no method of venom delivery. Being gentle and caring little souls, they have been considering this conundrum for millions of years, wondering how they can rid themselves of this venomous curse. Their greatest fear, since the evolution of humans a million or so years ago, is that a child may one day eat them and so die a terrible, agonising death. They fear this despite the fact that statistics have shown that 37.6% of human children remove the legs of craneflies and consider this a worthwhile pastime. That is how selfless, giving and benevolent craneflies are.
When the twentieth century saw an exponential rise in consumerism advertising companies began to make vasty fortunes and were one of the few industries wealthy enough (and brash enough) to build outdoor swimming pools for their employees. Chlorine is the one compund which counteracts the venom contained within craneflies' bodies. It is also a compound which rarely occurs naturally. Craneflies specifically seek out advertising companies in order to bathe in their pools and allow the chlorine to cleanse their bloodstreams and render them harmless to children.
Moxy, I know you of old and I know you are a good person. But an evil act is an evil act, whether or not it has been committed in good faith. It breaks my heart to envision you unicycling round that pool, pitching and leaning to maintain balance while spouting manic improvised unicycle-related poetry. Then occasionally you would lean further and further to the side, with consummate unicycular skill, and scoop those little daddy-long-legs from the water in a graceful swoopy sweep. Some of them may even have been mummy-long-legs and they will no doubt relate to their little baby-long-legs how they were prevented from becoming venom-free by a meddling (though well-intentioned) human. When the little baby-long-legs ask their mother in days to come if that is why they are still poisonous and may one day inadvertantly kill a child the mother will answer with a heavy heart:

'Yes Child....because of that Moxy character.'


This post is mostly true.....

Mea Culpa (or mea cuppa-souppa)

I am a wrong 'un, Siren and Steve and Sloop Paul B.

I was also a Punch and Judy barker (not the dog in the ruff but the person who shouts up business when the show's about to start, and who also inteprets Punch's statements if the swazzle stick is defective).

I was also a clown at Blackpool circus. Briefly. And a hypnotherapist.

I have been many things, thanks to answering advertisements.

Again, I agree with what Siren says about advertising...
I too worked in advertising, and I do not consider myself to be satanic in any way... love these discussions... ; )

What did you do, Francine? Did you ever work on any strange accounts?

Moxy!
Started out as a receptionist... then worked with the media buyer... participated in creative concept meetings... did some commercials... some strange clients... but no really strange product accounts ; )