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PoemGenerator

Retirement Poem Generator

Write a retirement poem for a card or a speech. Warm, funny or heartfelt, and edited by you before it goes anywhere.

Free Verse · Humorous

A blank page, for now

Choose a form on the left, tell it what the poem is about, and it will write. You can edit every line afterwards.

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Writing a retirement poem

A retirement poem marks the end of something most people spent forty years inside. The mistake is to write only about the job. The person is not the role, and the ones who did the job well usually know that better than anyone.

Three things that make it work

1

One office legend

The thing everyone tells new starters about them. The mug nobody was allowed to touch. It is what they will actually be remembered for.

2

Honour the work without listing it

A career summary is a CV, not a poem. Pick one thing they changed and let it stand for the rest.

3

The future can stay vague

Golf jokes are exhausted, and plenty of people retire without a plan and would rather not be asked.

What to avoid

Putting their feet up and well-earned rest. It suggests the interesting part of their life is over.

An example

Thirty-one years, and the kettle was never once filled by anybody else and never once ran dry. We have bought a new one, automatic, expensive. It is not the same and we all know why.
One small ritual carrying three decades

Forms that suit it

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