'FRIENDLY ADVICE' - fun poetry workshop/warm up activity based on Bukowski poem

I recently read the poem 'Friendly advice to a lot of young men', by Charles Bukowski. This provides a very simple and fun format for students' own poems. It is very accessible, and is irreverent in a way that will be enjoyable for teens and reluctant writers. Who might they write advice to? Some ideas are: parents, pets, teachers, siblings, politicians, their older/younger selves. Here is Bukowski's poem, followed by my version:

Friendly advice to a lot of young men by Charles Bukowski

Go to Tibet.
Ride a camel.
Read the Bible.
Dye your shoes blue.
Grow a Beard.
Circle the world in a paper canoe.
Subscribe to “The Saturday Evening Post.”
Chew on the left side of your mouth only.
Marry a woman with one leg and shave with a straight razor.
And carve your name in her arm.

Brush your teeth with gasoline.
Sleep all day and climb trees at night.
Be a monk and drink buckshot and beer.
Hold your head under water and play the violin.
Do a belly dance before pink candles.
Kill your dog.
Run for Mayor.
Live in a barrel.
Break your head with a hatchet.
Plant tulips in the rain.

But don’t write poetry.

Friendly Advice to a Lot of Old Men by Joshua Seigal

Sit in a chair

Dribble

Talk of the ‘good old days’

Wear cardigans and slippers

Pull your trousers up too high

Keep your glasses on a little string round your neck

Be a bit right-wing

Claim that music nowadays is ‘just noise’

Repeat yourself

Talk of the ‘good old days’

Forget things

Repeat yourself

Talk of the ‘good old days’

Insist your vegetables are boiled for a long time

Turn the TV up too loudly

Go to bed at 8am

Let your dentures hang out your mouth

Suck Worther’s Originals

Wave your walking stick at people

Get a hip replacement

But don’t try to be hip.