Melissa Lawrence Freelance Journalist and Writer

I write poems for adults and for children. My poems have been published in a variety of magazines and anthologies including:

The Coffee House, Funny Poems To Give You The Giggles (OUP), How To Survive School (Macmillan), Iota, The Mammoth Book of Limericks (Constable & Robinson), Mslexia, The New Writer, Obsessed With Pipework, Poetry Digest, Poetry Monthly, Poetry Nottingham International, Quantum Leap, Sky Breakers (Earlyworks Press), The Trying Flapeze (OUP), The Universal Vacuum Cleaner (OUP), Weyfarers.

Click on the link below to read one of my published poems for adults. (Some Nights)

Click on the link below to read one of my published poems for children. (Who's Who In School?)

Click on the link below to read the blurb for my first (as yet unpublished) collection of poems for children. (There's A Gorilla In My Pyjamas)

Click on the link below to read the blurb for my first (as yet unpublished) collection of poetry for teenagers. (I Wandered Lonely As A Snog)

Some Nights

Some Nights

Some nights, you just need burgers and chips
with cool-perfect onion rings,
slices of damp tomato
and sticky toffee pudding for afters.

Some nights, you just need dark, dreamboat sleep,
soothed by the somnambulant sirens
of the shipping forecast,
to a place where even dreams have ears.

Some nights, you just need steam-warm, silk-snagged skin,
pressed into the mirror of your thighs,
helping you to forget that today
someone laughed and pointed at a rainbow.

Who's Who in School?

Who's Who in School?

Spud basher
Mince hasher
Soup pourer
Apple corer
Pudding mixer
Menu fixer
Who am I?

Dirt sweeper
Key keeper
Locker mender
Boiler tender
Sick remover
Corridor hooverer
Who am I?

Whistle blower
Tantrum thrower
Kit inspector
Excuse detector
Football pumper
Hurdle jumper
Who am I?

Headmaster minder
Stationery finder
Parent ringer
Tea bringer
Visitor walker
Telephone talker
Who am I?

There's A Gorilla In My Pyjamas

THERE'S A GORILLA IN MY PYJAMAS

In this collection of poems for children, you can find out what the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood did on his day off, admire the A-Z Mum, discover the Ten Cool School Rules, learn how to stop your eyeballs turning into jelly, visit the Dinosaur Diner and uncover poems that are sometimes mad, sometimes sad and sometimes thought-provoking.

The collection is divided into six themed sections with approximately 11 poems in each division. Section headings are:

Nobody Knows, Except Me
My Best Mates
A Dust of Chalks
Why Is Sick Always Pink?
A Spectre Named Hector
As Far As Boxing Day

I Wandered Lonely As A Snog

I WANDERED LONELY AS A SNOG

A collection of poems for teenagers (not suitable for younger children) that covers every aspect of relationships from first love to lost love and all the bits in between. So if you're dating or mating, there's a poem in here for you.

The collection is divided into five themed sections:

1. Fancy That
2. Going Out, Staying In
3. Pucker Up
4. The Sex Factor
5. Game Over