Thursday, April 14, 2016

Poetry Week by Week: Some Favorite Animal Rhymes

The Poetry Week by Week celebration continues with more animal rhyme fun! As I mentioned before, I love rhyming poems about animals because they can be anything from nonsensical silliness about make-believe creatures to rhythmic instruction about the natural world. Today I thought I would share a poem from each extreme!

This first poem is from a book by Jack Prelutsky called THE SWAMPS OF SLEETHE (rhymes with breathe): POEMS FROM BEYOND THE SOLAR SYSTEM. It is a collection of spooky-ish poems about dangerous otherworldly places you probably would not ever want to visit!

Jack Prelutsky has a gift for the silly and the delightfully creepy. If you haven't read THE SWAMPS OF SLEETHE, you should look for it. You won't be disappointed!

The Bugs of Gub

The bugs of Gub, no two alike,
Are all designed to swiftly strike.
They'll swarm upon your tender skin,
And gnaw your nose, and chip your chin.

They're merciless, relentless things,
With dreadful venom in their stings.
They'll land on you with jaws agape,
And soon you'll find there's no escape.

The bugs of Gub will bite and chew
Until there's nothing left of you,
Not even the remotest trace
on Gub, your final resting place.

Like I said, delightfully creepy. Right?

The second poem I would like to share with you is from the book WINTER BEES & OTHER POEMS OF THE COLD by Joyce Sidman. This book is full of gorgeous poems about nature in winter, and equally gorgeous illustrations by Rick Allen. Along with each poem is a short paragraph about the poem's animal subject.

I chose Big Brown Moose to share with you because of its language and rhythm. It has a stompy-trompy feel about it that really feels moose-ish.

Big Brown Moose

I'm a big brown moose,
I'm a rascally moose,
I'm a moose with a tough, shaggy hide;
and I kick and I prance
in a long-legged dance
with my moose-mama close by my side.

I shrug off the cold
and I sneeze at the wind
and I swivel my ears in the snow;
and I tramp and I tromp
over forest and swamp,
'cause there's nowhere a moose cannot go.

Read the rest of the poem here.

Both of these poems (actually, both of these books!) inspire me to write some critter poems of my own. How about you?

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