I'd just like to share this poem with everyone here in AWADland:

I'm a friend of the words,
They all come to my call,
Shout-words and mute-words,
I'm a friend to them all.
Short words that jump
And roll over and hop.
Shock-words that bang or
explode or go pop.
I'm a friend of the words,
Including the long ones-
The many-lettered leg ones,
The right ones, the wrong ones.
The fat ones, the thin ones,
The ones that go clonk,
The wierd ones like zelig...
Those used by a monk.
I do love all words,
As I've mentioned before,
Even the huge ones
That don't fit into this poem
Like disestablishmentarianism.



Hmmm... upon re-reading this poem, I've come to feel that it sounds a bit like the musical of Doctor Dolittle:I can speak to the animals, talk with the animals...

yes, it does have a wonderful childlike property..
and when did that become something to be avoided?

i remember the poetry books of my early school days, Christina Rossetti, Edward Lear, Robert Stevenson, Emily Dickensons, Robert Frost, Mansfield, so many names. some times short and simple, sometimes longer but such fun poems.. or so rhymic, and or so sweet...sometimes even set to song..

Over the river and hills we go
to grandmother house to stay..

or
Who has seen the wind,
neither you or i,
but when the trees bow down their head
when the wind is passing by...
(christina rossetti calls to me from my youth..) and yet reading her poetry now, it is no less wonderful.

when did someone decide the only worth while poetry had to be complex, that it needed to taken apart word by word by a scholar, and was beyond the grasp of anyone who didn't have a MFA?

my kids know and love poetry, because i always made sure they heard and learned poetry as children.. poems existed for all occations..

now memory fails for authors and exact words, but after a cold day playing in the snow, we would settle down, and delight ourselves,
Animal Crackers and cocoa to drink,
this is the finest of (lunches?), i think


or when off on long trips to the great grandparents, as the early morning sun shone in their eyes, i would remind them
i'll tell you how the sun rose,
a ribbon at a time.

or coming home late at night, who has not quieted down, and been lost in wonder, listing to these word
Slowly, silently, now the moon,
Walks the night in a silver shoon,
silently peering, this way and that,
.....? the silver paw on the silver cat,
as the moon dances along beside you?

word of poetry swim in my brain.. (all my books are packed or i would look up authors,) but you could find them i guess on Bartleby, too. I would always have a book with some favorites in the car.
(as they got older, i tended to read short essays.. or we used the Roadside guide to geology-- a great book that tells you about all the rocks you are whizzing by at 60 miles an hour... i don't know if it is a Metro NY specialty, but boy it was fun!)

It sounds more like Dr. Seuss than Dr. Doolittle.

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It's so terrible how they hopped on pop (sobbing) - Homer Simpson

Great poem, bonzo - what is its provenance? I've never heard ot before, which is definitely my loss.

i think it is a bonzo original, that she wanted to share with us...
and like a mother, sending a child out, alone in the world for the first time, she was at once proud, and afraid...but she needn't have been..

i think it is a bonzo original
Yep, hope ya liked it!
It took me the best (and I mean best!) part of a maths lesson.
Oh yeah, of troy, neat analogy!

Bonzai, I can't think of a better way to spend math(s) lesson time than to write a wonderful poem. I really think this needs to be published. Maybe you could send it to Anu or to Richard Lederer (http://pw1.netcom.com/~rlederer/index.htm)?

Maybe you could send it to Anu or to Richard Lederer
Thanks for the suggestion... but what do I say?
I'm kinda clueless when it comes to submissions and stuff.

Great work, Bonzai; I am very impressed! It is a lovely poem that really sums up how all of us (I think) feel about words.

I am going to print it out and paste it up beside WO'N's poems.