Mr. Beefy
I am not thin, but I am beautiful.
When
no
one
is
looking, I steal tubs of butter off the table.
I take them to the basement to eat in private.
Once I ate a PIE.
Patricia MacLachlan and Emily MacLachlan Charest
Last week I promised that I would include this poem in my next entry. I absolutely love it – and so have the elementary students with whom I’ve shared it. The poets did interesting things with arranging the words on the page; I tried to recreate it as best I could.
Reading this poem again made me want to start working on one about some of the things that some of the dogs I know and love have eaten. I’m hoping that I can finish it by next week, but who knows? (I have some that I’ve been working on for multiple years).
To get in the mood to write about dogs, I have been looking at a couple of very nice (primarily informational) books: Dogs and Cats by Steve Jenkins (of paper cutting fame) and The Nature of Dogs by Mary Ludington. I have also relished Dogs, by Emily Gravett. She is one of my new favorites in terms of author/illustrators. I was delighted to get to meet her at a conference a few years ago.
I mentioned Arnold Adoff’s Eats in last week’s entry. He has been a master of interesting arrangement of words on the page for quite some time. Some of the kids in your care might particularly enjoy his Sports Pages. All the Colors of the Race is a collection of poems that explores life in an interracial family. (His poem about chocolate originally appeared there; it has a special, deep meaning).