Back in 1934 family physician and poet William Carlos Williams wrote a poem which I have shown above in a form that might have been taped to the door of an icebox. It even has a Wikipedia page.
Originally it was:
This is just to say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
It appeared on the wall of a building in The Hague. There is an 80-page 2012 book by Gail Carson Levine titled Forgive Me, I Meant to Do It: false apology poems that describes how to do a parody on pages 22 and 23:
“Imagine his wife coming downstairs in the morning after dreaming about those plums all night and waking up tasting them. Possibly she opens the icebox door (no refrigerators then) and finds a poem in the neatly washed-and-dried plum bowl. Maybe she laughs or maybe she goes for a very long walk or maybe she seats his breakfast and then writes her own false apology poem-
Which you can do too. Many poets have written them, following the form invented by William Carlos Williams. But don’t even consider writing this kind of poem unless you can get yourself into a grouchy mood. You will be wasting your time.
If you do decide to write, your poems should be mean, or what’s the point? Mine are, and William Carlos Williams’s is too, in its subtle way. He’s glad he got to those plums first!
You don’t need a title because William Carlos Williams has given you one, which can be repeated endlessly until your reader is completely sick of it. You also don’t need a new ninth line, because that’s always the same too: Forgive me. Notice that there are three stanzas, which you may agree are quite enough, and each stanza is four lines long, which you may think are four too many. The first stanza states the horrible offense. The second stanza describes the effect of the offense. The last stanza begins with ‘Forgive me,’ and continues with the false apology, because the writer is not sorry at all. There is no punctuation (how nice), and the beginning words of only the first and ninth lines need to be capitalized. The line beginnings and endings substitute for capital letters and punctuation. Normally, capitals and punctuation help the reader understand, so be careful to end your lines in a way that is very clear, unless you want to confuse your reader, which might be the wisest course.
Also, think about the rhythm of the lines. After you’ve cleared everyone out of the house, read your stanzas aloud to help you decide where to end a line. Funny poems are still poems.
You don’t have to follow William Carlos Williams’s form exactly if you don’t want to. I haven’t. You can add or subtract lines and stanzas. Or you can abandon the form completely and write false apology poems in your own cruel way.
For those of you who lack an ounce of mean and are reading this book only for research into the psychology of unpleasant people, you can write a real apology poem. However, even this will not be possible if you are too angelic to have anything to apologize for.
Whatever way you do it, have fun and save your poems!”
An example of her parodies (from page 8) is:
This is just to say
My bulldozer
has flattened
the thorny
hedge
which
you mistakenly
expected to sleep behind
until the prince came
Forgive me
I’m charging tourists
ten dollars
to visit the castle
She also has versions based on stores for children like Jack and Jill (page 14), Jack and the Beanstalk (page 28), Red Riding Hood (page 55), Rapunzel (page 62), and Humpty Dumpty (page 66), etc.
There is another 48-page book from 2007 by Joyce Sidman titled This Is Just to Say: Poems of apology and forgiveness. She has apology poems written by a class of sixth graders and responses to them. One example from page 8 is:
This Is Just to Say
I have stolen the jelly doughnuts that were in the teacher’s lounge
and which you were probably saving for teachers.
Forgive me. They were delicious, so sweet and so gloppy.
Too bad the powdered sugar spilled all over my shirt
and gave me away.
By Thomas
I got started on this topic by finding a blog post from David Murray at Writing Boots on August 22, 2025 titled Friday Happy Hour Poem (and a true story). His parody is:
This Is Just to Say, by Eddie [the dog]
I have eaten the chicken shawarma (I think it was)
that was on the picnic blanket and which my owner
subsequently made me understand you were surely
eating for dinner with your young daughter,
when I ran over from playing with the other dogs
in the middle of Smith Park because I smelled something good, and ransacked before you and the little girl knew what hit you.
Forgive me. It was delicious, so moist, and so savory.