The poet regrets neglecting her oral hygiene as a child and youth. She enjoyed sweets like toffees and gobstoppers without concern for her teeth. While she brushed at night, it was hurried and ineffective. Now she faces dental work like fillings and root canals as a result of her past carelessness. She mocks how she once laughed at her mother's dentures but now faces the same fate of false teeth due to her neglect.

1. Oh, I Wish I’d Looked After
Me Teeth
(BY PAM AYRES)

2. 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.
PAM AYRES

3. ABOUT THE POEM
INTRODUCTION
“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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. MESSAGE
The 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.

7. 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.

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

9. 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.

10. 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!

11. If I’d know, I was paving the way
To cavities, caps and decay,
The murder of fillin’s
Injections and drillin’s
I’d have thrown all me sherbet
away.

12. 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.”

13. 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.

14. LITERARY DEViCES1.Alliteration
Sweet sticky food
Lollies,I licked
Cavities, caps and decay
Molars of mine
2.Repetition
Oh, I Wish I’d looked after me teeth
The Rhyme Scheme of the poem is aabba.