Here's a selection of my poems for children. I hope you enjoy them! (And do come back from time to time. The poems you find here will not always be the same ones).
Reading Between the Letters
This poem appeared in LADYBUG in April 2018.
The "Just Because" Hug
This poem was commissioned by my three-year old niece. She knew I wrote poems and wanted me to write one about a "just because hug." Her wish was my command. Years later it was published in Kenn Nesbitt's wonderful anthology, "One Minute Till Bedtime," which is a book I strongly recommend to all parents of small children.
Just because you’re a horse, does that mean you have to go around saying “neigh” all the time? The horse in this poem didn’t think so. There’s something about mooing that’s just so darn hard to resist. Let’s see how it turned out. (The poem originally appeared in Bumbershoot).
This poem, which was originally published in Bumbershoot, starts with the following question then goes on to answer it:
If Morris’s chorus is better than Boris’s,
Boris’s chorus can outsing Dolores’s,
Dolores’s chorus is better than Horace’s,
and Horace’s chorus is better than Doris’s,
can Doris’s chorus be better than Morris’s?
Did you ever wonder why certain prefixes aren’t more popular? Take “ig,” for example. As this poem points out, “ig” is pretty much restricted to a handful of words such as “ignoble.” But why not use it all the time? The poem originally appeared in Bumbershoot.
I’m an unlucky fella,
there is no doubt.
I bought an umbrella …
we had a drought.
Sometimes it seems that everything I buy ends up being useless. But that gives me an idea!
When chickens squawking in the coop
squat down on their chicken legs
they’re sometimes making chicken poop
and sometimes making chicken eggs.
When this poem first appeared in Anon Two, the editor (Mike Stocks) suggested in his introduction that these lines could be viewed as a metaphor for what poets produce. Like chickens, poets are capable of two very different kinds of work product when they go about their business.