I just discovered a poet named Spike Milligan. Apparently, he’s quite famous although I had not heard of him. He was a British comedian and is ranked the 40th on Poem Hunter’s Top 500 Poets List. If you like Edward Lear, Roald Dahl, and Lewis Carroll, you are sure to enjoy Spike Milligan. His nonsense poems will take you on a vacation in your mind.
On the Ning Nang Nong
On the Ning Nang Nong
Where the Cows go Bong!
and the monkeys all say BOO!
There’s a Nong Nang Ning
Where the trees go Ping!
And the tea pots jibber jabber joo.
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the mice go Clang
And you just can’t catch ‘em when they do!
So its Ning Nang Nong
Cows go Bong!
Nong Nang Ning
Trees go ping
Nong Ning Nang
The mice go Clang
What a noisy place to belong
is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!
Go North, South, East, and West, Young Man
Drake is going west, lads
So Tom is going East
But tiny Fred
Just lies in bed,
The lazy little beast.
Summer has started for everyone and many of our Little Poets are on vacation. Write a poem about your vacation, real or imaginary, as if you are writing to a friend back home. Find a picture for your postcard and post it on the Little Poets facebook page.
An epitaph is a short text honoring a deceased person that is inscribed on their tombstone. You may have seen them on cartoons or in comic books. It’s a real opportunity for some humorous poetry.
Today we shall write a “Smoker’s Epitaph” Anti Smoking Poem. See the anti-smoking poems at Poetry Teachers and write your own poem.
“Here lies Sam Shay,
Smoked six packs a day.
He started smoking when he was five.
Now that fool is no longer alive.”
Don’t forget to post it in the comments or on the Little Poets Facebook page . If you want to be even more creative, draw a picture of a tombstone with your funny epitaph inside. Here’s a video to help you draw a tombstone.
And in the immortal words of Mel Blanc, “That’s all folks.”
Have you ever heard of a spoonerism? No, it isn’t when you stick a spoon on your nose and pose for the camera, but it is just as funny. Spoonerisms are phrases, sentences, or words in language with swapped sounds. Usually this happens by accident, particularly if you’re speaking fast. The name Spoonerism comes from the Reverend William Archibald Spooner who is reputed to have been particularly prone to making this type of verbal slip.
Listen to the story of The Pee Little Thrigs and you will soon know exactly what I’m talking about.
Shel Silverstein wrote an entire book of spoonerisms called Runny Babbitt. The page that keeps my family most entertained is Runny’s Rittle Leminders. Take a moment to figure them out before you sit down and write your own spoonerism poem. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must go shake a tower. When I’m shout of the hour I’ll write a poem at the lead of spite that will tickle your bunny phone. Eye ball.
Juicy words – adding their aroma, their flavor, their stickiness, their color to poems everywhere. We can’t wait to hear them.
Today we take our cue for a poem from a Little Poet who learned about juicy words at school recently. What is a juicy word? It’s a word that gives us a vivid description.
You want to talk about something that is white? Tell us how white it is. Maybe it’s vanilla, maybe it’s frosty cold white, maybe it’s so white your eyes burn at its sight.
Juicy words paint a picture in our minds. Juicy words give us a deeper meaning.
Pick something to write about. Look up pictures online or in books or get that thing right there in front of you and describe it to us. Tell us what it looks like, how it tastes, what kind of sounds it might make, make us reach out and touch it with your words. We want to smell it! Write your poem and if you can include a picture, a drawing, or a photo, it will be all the better! Make us want to reach out and pick it off the tree and eat it up! No, it doesn’t have to be food, but the point is make us want to feel with all our senses what it is you feel about it.
Today’s writing prompt is the Acrostic. Acrostic poems feature the first letters of each line spelling out a word. The word may be the subject of the poem. Some of you may recall my poem to an inanimate object (Instant coffee). I used the acrostic form to write that one. Our example today is provided by our Little Poet who enthusiastically selected this poem type for you all today!
Drag their tail to you sometimes
Odd? No they’re not
Go outside to play catch.
Have you ever tried to sleep at night, but you get all sorts of ideas running through your head instead? Read this poem by Shel Silverstein and write your own What If Poem.
Whatif by Shel Silverstein
Last night, while I lay thinking here,
some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
and pranced and partied all night long
and sang their same old Whatif song:
Whatif I’m dumb in school?
Whatif they’ve closed the swimming pool?
Whatif I get beat up?
Whatif there’s poison in my cup?
Whatif I start to cry?
Whatif I get sick and die?
Whatif I flunk that test?
Whatif green hair grows on my chest?
Whatif nobody likes me?
Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?
Whatif I don’t grow talle?
Whatif my head starts getting smaller?
Whatif the fish won’t bite?
Whatif the wind tears up my kite?
Whatif they start a war?
Whatif my parents get divorced?
Whatif the bus is late?
Whatif my teeth don’t grow in straight?
Whatif I tear my pants?
Whatif I never learn to dance?
Everything seems well, and then
the nighttime Whatifs strike again!
In today’s poem, we shall use three new terms: Irony, Reminiscing, and Punchline.
Ironyis when spoken or written words have the opposite from their meaning. An example of irony can be found in Louis Sacher‘s story Holes. Stanley Yelnats was excited to get to go to Camp Greenlake. When he got there he found out that it was indeed not a camp and there was no lake. Alanis Morissette‘s song Ironicis full of examples of irony.
Reminiscingis indulging in enjoyable recollection of past events. In simpler words, it means thinking about the good old days, remembering the best things that happened in your life. Today my daughter joined the two when on the way to school she said how she missed KG2 (kindergarten). Things were so much better then. The irony to this statement is that she is only in first grade! KG2 was just last year.
The next term we will use in today’s poem is the punchline. Wikipedia summed it up with a nice definition: A punchline is the final part of a joke, comedy sketch, or profound statement, usually the word, sentence or exchange of sentences which is intended to be funny or to provoke laughter or thought from listeners. Few punchlines are inherently funny out of context, but when a comedian sets up the premise and builds up the audience’s expectations, the punch line can function as the climactic part of the act.
Where did this word punchline come from? It’s a mystery to some, but others believe that it came from a character from a puppet show called Punch and Judy. That final line of a joke is meant to be delivered in the same way that Punch delivered his slapstick blows on the characters in the puppet show.
Watch the irony in the following clip from G.I.Blues, a movie with Elvis Presley. It is ironic to see Elvis singing a love song to a puppet. Watch the clip until the end to see the punchline.
Now it is time to put all three of these terms into action. Write a poem reminiscingof things and at the end of the poem deliver the ironic punchline that shows that it was something that just happened recently.