Snowy Days and Poetry Books

Today we are snowed in.  In the last twenty-four hours we have gotten about 10 inches of snow and it is cold and blowing and still snowing.  It is a good Sunday afternoon to lay around and read.

I love poetry.  But what I mean is that I like simple poetry that makes sense.  I am not a poetry snob by any means.  I like poems that rhyme and have a nice flow.  I like poems that are about my life.  I like poems that make you laugh.  

 These are my books that have meant the most to me.  I have read these poems many times throughout my life.  The thing about a poem is that it is easier to remember than a story, so the lines come back to you and you find yourself reciting a poem from childhood when you are 30 years old.  (Or older.)

Here are my favorite poetry books, and one poem from each:

 A.A. Milne.  You know, the guy who wrote Winnie the Pooh.  He also wrote this lovely book of poems for children.  My favorite?

Disobedience

James James

Morrison Morrison

Weatherby George Dupree

Took great

Care of his Mother

Though he was only three.

James James

Said to his Mother,

"Mother," he said, said he:

"You must never go down to the end of the town

if you don't go down with me."

The poem goes on for five more verses.  My Grandma Hart had it memorized and I can very clearly remember her reciting it.  My kids do not seem impressed when I recite it to them, but I love it.

Everyone loves Shel Silverstein.  He was very popular when I was in elementary school, and he still is- because who doesn't like poems like this:

HOW NOT TO HAVE TO DRY THE DISHES

If you have to dry the dishes

(Such an awful, boring chore)

If you have to dry the dishes

('Stead of going to the store)

If you have to dry the dishes

And you drop one on the floor-

Maybe they won't let you

Dry the dishes anymore.

I asked Katie to pick her favorite from this book, and here it is:

POINT OF VIEW

Thanksgiving dinner's sad and thankless

Christmas dinner's dark and blue

When you stop and try to see it

From the turkey's point of view.

Sunday dinner isn't sunny

Easter feasts are just bad luck

When you see it from the viewpoint 

Of a chicken or a duck.

Oh how I once love tuna salad

Pork and lobsters, lamb chops too

Till I stopped and looked at dinner

From the dinner's point of view.

I received this book for Christmas when I was 18.  I bet you already know quite a few of his poems.  Here is one that maybe you have never heard:

Dust of Snow

The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart 

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued.

If you are looking for a nice collection of popular poems; from Bible verses to Langston Hughes to her own poetry, you will like this collection of Jackie Kennedy Onassis' favorites.  She was also quite fond of Robert Frost.  Here is one I really like:

Three Ponies

by Arthur Guiterman

Three little ponies who didn't like their hay

Said to each other, "Let's run away!"

Said the first, "I will canter!"

Said the second, "I will trot!"

Said the third, "I will run if it's not too hot!"

And they all started off

With their tails in the air.

But they couldn't jump the fence

So they're all still there.

It just so happens that all of these books were given to me by my Hart family.  What a great gift to me that you inspired me to love poetry =)  Thank you.

Do you have a favorite poem?  Share it with me!