The Product Placement Officer of Verse Copyright © Rob Lock 2010

Yes, ladies and gents, that’s what I am,
and I’m here to talk about opportunities
waiting out there just for you – but not for long.
Some other bugger’s (begging your pardon, ladies)
bound to do it soon. It’s so obvious – the chance
to get your name in front of the eyes of the, by-definition,
literate class: the people who take in what they read.

It’s standard practice for films, it happens on the BBC –
nudge, nudge - and now for poetry.

Maybe you - educated people though you are -
are not familiar with current trends in verse.
I can see that classic lines are more your style - but for our purposes they’re no good -
out of copyright maybe, but too well known.
You couldn’t get away with: ‘I wandered
lonely as a cloud to Wyevale
where I bought these daffs’.
Somebody would blow the gaff.
(How about that, ladies and gents? That rhymes,
nearly.) As I was saying, those lines are just
too well known for us to work with.
It wouldn’t be subliminal.

We’ve got to get in on the ground floor.
Get the people who are writing now to mention your gear –
and it shouldn’t be too hard, because being specific
is what they’re about – so flaunting trade-names
is what they do. Lends an air of authenticity, see?
Allusions, as they know, create illusions -
and they are giving them way for free.
All those unsolicited ads: it makes my heart bleed! But we can change all that – and it won’t even cost much.
An entry in the Personal Columns of Poetry Review
and I’m in. Writers who get published aren’t that many
and I’ll sweet-talk them one by one,
get them to include the goods that money
wants to shift. Could be yours, right?
Male writers, madam? Yes, there are a few, and one or two
might prefer a woman’s touch – am I speaking metaphorically? -
but that’s been taken care of, hasn’t it Sandra?

Just imagine - our man, or lady, in a garret is composing
a few tasteful lines about his, or her, lonely life
and – to get the nitty grit - mentions the empty jar
of Nescafé, left on the shelf next to the Silver Spoon.
(I hope you heard those capital letters, ladies, gents!)
Now that jar could just as easily be Maxwell House -
and there’s a product that needed some placement therapy,
in these post nasty-accident-at-sea days.
Well, there you'd have it: soulful connections in spades.

And names. There’s nothing that your modern writer likes so much
as telling us the street that they were brought up on,
the kids who hung out there. “My parents kept me
from children who were rough” doesn’t cut the mustard
any more. Now it’s “My parents kept me from …” well who? Could be Jack Daniels or Eddie Stobart - at a price.
Wrong associations in this case, granted, but you get the point.
And the little girl remembered in that seaside idyll -
she doesn’t have to be Milly or Molly or Mandy or May –
we are not talking documentary here but poetic truth.
So why not, say, Ann Summers? Think about it.

Thank you, thank you. Cheers, mate. Good decision, madam.
You won’t regret it.