Oh, I Wish I’d Looked After Me

Teeth(by Pam Ayres)

ABOUT THE POET

Very popular performer and a comic verse writer Pam Ayres has a natural flow for writing amusing verses having a remarkable spontaneity about them. Having a large fan-following this contemporary poet has appeared in many popular major TV shows. An author of six books of poem she also has seven record albums to her credit. Comical themes and linguistic Variations make her poems more enjoyable.

ABOUT THE POEMINTRODUCTION“Oh, I Wish I’d Looked After Me Teeth”

expresses the poet’s regret in adulthood regarding the damage caused to her teeth due to her carelessness. In her youth, she made fun of mother’s false teeth but now she helplessly awaits her turn when she would have to satisfy herself with a set of false teeth as a result of negligence.

SUMMARY The poet regrets having neglected her teeth

during her childhood and youth. As a youngster she chewed toffees, took sweet sticky food and enjoyed gobstoppers(large, hard sweets) without showing concern for her teeth. Now she is full of remorse for having confused so much lollies and toffees.

She did brush her teeth at night but the way she did it hurriedly and carelessly it was more of a ritual to brush the teeth than an effort to maintain a good oral hygiene.

She didn’t realize at that time that her carelessness towards her teeth were paving the way for their decay and soon she would find herself in the dentist's chair getting her cavities filled in.

There was time when she used to ridicule her mother’s set of false teeth. Unfortunately, she too has reached the stage when she would have to be satisfied with a denture. Helplessly she can do nothing but regret about it wistfully.

MESSAGEThe poem conveys the message that

time once lost cannot be regained. Hence, it is important to make hay while the sun shines.

Good food habits and a sense of dental hygiene needs to be inculcated amongst the children by the adults and timely measures should be taken to preserve one’s teeth.

Oh, I Wish I’d Looked After Me Teeth(by Pam Ayres)

Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth, And spotted the perils beneath. All the toffees chewed, And the sweet sticky food Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth.

I wish I’d have been that much more willin’When I had more tooth there than fillin’To pass up gobstoppersFrom respect to my choppers,And to buy something else with me shillin.’

When I think of the lollies I licked,And the liquorices all sorts I

picked,Shrebet dabs, big and little,And the hard peanut brittle,My conscience gets pricked.

Oh I showed them the toothpaste all right,I flashed it about late at night,

But up-and –down brushin’And pokin’ and fussin’

Didn’t seem worth the time – I could bite!

If I’d know, I was paving the way To cavities, caps and decay,

The murder of fillin’sInjections and drillin’s

I’d have thrown all me sherbet away.

So I lay in the old dentist’s chair,And I gaze up his nose in despair,

And his drill it do whine,In these molars of mine.

“Two amalgum,”he’ll say, "for in there.”

How I laughed at my mother’s false teeth,

As they foamed in the waters beneath But now comes the reckonin’

It’s me they are beckonin’Oh, I wish I’d looked sfter me teeth.

LITERARY DEViCES1.AlliterationSweet sticky foodLollies,I lickedCavities, caps and decayMolars of mine2.RepetitionOh, I Wish I’d looked after me teeth

The Rhyme Scheme of the poem is aabba.

Efforts by-Aastha Sahu

IX-A