Roses are red, violets are blue. If you've got a dollar, then request a custom poem, just for you.

Halifax University student Jon Bolduc, 19, is offering to write poetry for money.

For $1, he'll write a poem. The topic is the buyer's choice.

"One person who emailed me worked at a call centre," said Bolduc. "I wrote a poem, tried to give her hope."

Bolduc, a second year student at the University of King's College, says his Kijiji ad already has more 600 views — and ten requests for poems. He's even finished writing a few of them.

But Bolduc has run into some complications when it comes to the payments.

"I set up a PayPal but someone told me you have to pay $1.35 for every $1 transaction, so I don't know I'll have to figure that out," he said.

For the past six years Halifax has had a poet laureate, but there's no wordsmith in place right now. Halifax City Council still has to decide if it wants to fill the position again.

In the meantime the city has a poet for hire.