A Children's Poem

Scrivener had a wonderful post a while back about reading Seamus Heaney with Chloe and Ella. One of the things I love about reading with Curious Girl is poetry (even prose poetry): a great children's book will have great rhythm, great sounds, great imagery.

One of our friends gave us Judy Sierra et al.'s Antarctic Antics: A Book of Penguin Poems. While not all these poems are great, there's one poem that instantly became CG's first favorite poem. I look forward to her maturing taste in poetry, but for now, here's a poem that is guaranteed to make us all laugh, "I Am Looking for My Mother."

I am looking for my mother.
But you all look like each other.
So I'll do what Mama said,
And I'll use my ears instead.

ECK!
My mom does not say eck.
She might give ms a peck
On the back of my neck,
But she'd never say eek.

ICK!
My mom wouldn't say ick!
She would call me her chick
As she gives me a lick,
But she couldn't say ick.

EEK!
My mom does not say eek!
She might let out a shriek
That would make the ice creak
But she'd never squeak eek

AWK!
What mom would say awk?
Awk is only a sqwawk,
And it's no way to talk.
Go away with your awk!

Such a sweet sounding ack.
Lovely Mom, you've come back.
Did you bring me a snack?
Only my mom says ack!

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Sociolinguistically, I'm not thrilled with the awk verse, since I think it reinforces negative attitudes about the phonology of New York area English dialects. So we usually end up rhyming other things there, like "it's a great way to talk when you come from New York!" Children's literature--and movies in particular--can do a disservice to building linguistic tolerance. Rosina Lippi-Green has a wonderful chapter about English accents and dialects in Disney movies in her excellent English With An Accent, for any linguistically-interested-parents out there.

friday poetry blogging