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Tuesday 26 June 2012

Some Favourite Funny Poems for Kids

We all have favourite things - colours, things to eat, places to visit, shops, TV shows, books et al. As you start to read more poetry, you'll begin to gather a collection of your favourite poems. You'll also find lots of poems you can't stand, the poetic equivalent of rice pudding. My ultimate rice pudding poem is Daffodils by the insufferably dull William Wordsworth, but that's a story for another day.

If you write poems as well as read them, you end up with two lists of favourites poems. I've got a list of other people's poems that I really admire. I call them the poems I wish I'd written myself, although it's very naughty to covet other poet's poems and naughtier still to steal their ideas. I've got a second list of the favourites among the 100 odd (some very odd) poems I've written myself. In this case, I'm going to begin with two poems I really love and covet by Paul Curtis and Max Scratchmann, my co-conspirators at Funny Poems for Kids.

Two Poems I Wish I'd Written

To add a bit of spice, I've chosen poems which haven't yet appeared on the FP4K website. The first  poem I've picked is a gloriously silly confection by Paul Curtis, titled A Game of Arra's. It's about darts - not a game children are encouraged to play - but all you really need to know to enjoy the poem is that before a fun game of darts the players throw a single dart and the one who is closest to the bull (the bulls eye in the centre of the dart board) gets to throw first.  
A Game Of Arra’s

Me and some friends
Fancied a game of darts
I said, “Nearest the bull
To see who starts”
Johnny went “Woof”
And I went “Baah”
Then Danny went “Moo”
He was the closest by far
Next, we have a nonsense poem by Max Scratchmann called The Death of Mr Car Polish. Nonsense poems are deliberately silly and this poem is no exception. I love it both for the strange obsession that Mr Car Polish has for his Ford Fiesta and the bizarre manner of his death. 
The Death of Mr Car Polish

Mr Car Polish stood shining up his Ford Fiesta in the rain,
Braces neatly placed over lilac nylon shirt,
His auto hand-held polishing machine
Skimming
Over the immaculate red of his Ford,
Old Henry’s original quote turned on it’s head,
You can have any colour as long as it’s red.

The rain spattered down on the gleaming Turtle Wax,
Bouncing off and hitting the pavement in loud splashes,
But Mr Car Polish just polished on and on,
Making that wet Fiesta shine in the afternoon sunlight,
A rainbow shimmering on the gleaming chrome
As he proudly puts his darling to bed in the garage,
Tucking a tarpaulin around her and whispering bed-bug rhymes in her ear,
Mr Car Polish went home to have his tea
And was killed stone dead
When a plaster duck fell from the wall and hit him on the head.
Dead.

And One I Wished I Hadn't

The final poem is a new one of my own that I wrote last month. It's short (I love short poems), funny (at least I think it is, although I'm never sure until other people have read it) and heretical. It's based on a biblical story and making fun of people's religious beliefs can get you into a lot of trouble, which is why I'm slightly regretting having written it and may regret even more sharing it with you. Well, here goes...

D & G

David was a hot shot
With a sling shot

Swoosh
Whoosh
Thwack
Thud

Goliath was not

D & G is also an example of an onomatopoeia poem, which is one of my favourite types of poetry. And my all time favourite onomatopoeia poems is Max's The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest, a poem which contains just 13 words, but 16 exclamation marks!!!

Saturday 2 June 2012

Funny Jubilee Poem

To celebrate the Diamond Jubilee, Max has written a rather wonderful poem about the Queen which is funny, touching and emphasises how normal she is.

Jubilee Party
by Max Scratchmann

It was the royal Jubilee, the princes cried, Hooray!
It's time to throw a party, for Mummy's holiday.

They hurried down to Poundland, to buy some paper cups,
And plastic Chinese Union Jacks, and hats for Corgi pups.

But what about the food we'll eat, the cupboard's bare as sand,
Oh, worry not, the Queen replied, your mum has been to Iceland.
Do you think the Queen really shops at Iceland and the royal princes at Poundland? We do know she has tupperware boxes of cereal on the royal breakfast table, so it's possible.

Footman Note
Max actually wrote four Jubilee Poems for us, but the other three, while not rude, weren't quite suitable for younger children. If you're aged 9+ and would like to read them, you'll find them on the Peculiar Poetry Jubilee Poems page.