Poets is a sketch that appears in "The Buzz Aldrin Show," the seventeenth episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
Synopsis[]
A sales manager of the East Midlands Poet Board (John Cleese) tells the audience that a poet is essential for home comfort and all-year-round reliability. They hope to have a poet in every home by the end of next year. It cuts to an advertisement with a song about their service.
A woman (Terry Jones) answers her front door where an inspector (Michael Palin) has come to 'read her poet'. She directs him to the cupboard under the stairs where William Wordsworth (Eric Idle) reads I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud. The Inspector looks around the cupboard and starts to leave but the woman tries to engage in conversation. She remarks about the weather and the inspector launches into a full weather forecast, pulling down a map of the UK.
A BBC continuity announcer (Idle) announces choice of viewing on BBC 1 or 2.
The woman switches the TV off and pours the inspector a cup of tea, asking about his job. He starts to leave but the woman compliments his torch. The woman tries to keep the inspector from leaving and asks him to look at her Thomas Hardy in the bedroom. She launches herself onto him and asks his name, Wombat Harness, who hastily agrees to look at her Thomas Hardy.