Yellow Pencils is continuing our celebration of poetry this month.
There's something about spring that makes me think about...nonsense! It must be the wonderful smells in the air, and the extra kick we have in our steps. Or maybe it's the dogs running around in hats.
Nonsense poems are silly and fun, like Edward Lear's "The Quangle Wangle's Hat." It begins:
On the top of the Crumpetty Tree
The Quangle Wangle sat,
But his face you could not see,
On account of his Beaver Hat.
For his Hat was a hundred and two feet wide,
With ribbons and bibbons on every side,
And bells, and buttons, and loops, and lace,
So that nobody could ever see the face
Of the Quangle Wangle Quee.
Try not reading that poem out loud. You just have to, it's so fun, with made-up words like "crumpetty" and "Quangle Wangle." (And what if the Quangle Wangle was a dog?)
Lewis Carroll wrote the ultimate nonsense poem, "Jabberwocky." Here are the first two stanzas:
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jujub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
Try writing your own poem with nonsense words. You can use either Edward Lear's or Lewis Carroll's poems as a model.
Read a poem just for fun or to inspire your writing. Writing is made up of words, and poets have the most fun of all experimenting with them.
