More from the funEverse

No To No Rhyme

To live in a world where there is no rhyme
Would seem to me to be a crime
And surely children need this skill
To prevent them all becoming ill
From: sums and science, laws and rules
Boredom, bedtime, some of school.
To have no rhyme would be a curse,
That's why we have the funEverse!

Introducing:

Georgina Kirk

Growing up on the dyslexic side of life I've always found that I have a short.... ooooh shortbread, I could just eat some of that with a cuppa.

Now, where was I? Oh yes, a short attention span, which meant that it was difficult to concentrate for very...did I empty the dishwasher?... long.

That's why I loved poetry so much, it's so immediately satisfying, and the rhyme and the rhythm carries you along with so little effort... now I really need to remember to do the ironing... and acts as pegs to hang memories on. It's a shame times tables don't work the same way.

Now, believe it or not, I am a primary school teacher... must finish those lesson plans... and I know the best way to grab my class's attention and inspire them is with a poem. I also know that the current publishing trend away from poetry is a frustration for teachers, we know that the child that learns to rhyme well learns to spell well, and bell, fell, spell, hell, tell, shell.... oooo it's ages since I went to the beach.

My Brain Needs Training

My brain needs training, it’s terribly flabby,
Function is slow, thought process is saggy,
My recall is poor, memory is baggy,
And receptors have gone all hard and all craggy.

I wish I could make it more trim and more buff,
And crammed with loads of intelligent stuff,
So much that one head just isn’t enough,
But instead it’s full of this old airy fluff.
©Georgina Kirk 2012

Mo O'Hara

"My take on how I found poetry or it found me or when we crashed together"

I started before Kindergarten reading Dr Seuss.

But I think it was Shel Silverstein who set poetry loose,

On it's winding, whirling, inny, outy, journey through my life.

And it's followed me as student, actor, mother, writer, wife.

I discovered poems' beauty in the bookshops and at school

And I learned about the meter and the rhythm and the rules.

I read poems that made me cry and dipped me in their pain

And other ones that tickled me like lightly dripping rain.

but it  was the story poems that most captivated me.

A ballad of a highwayman or a sailor on the sea,

Or a raven quothing things aloud that nevermore should be.

I recited them and someone said, "That's good." ( and they meant me)

At last I became a storyteller and I travelled and I found

That so many brilliant poets spun their magic spinning sound.

So I listened and it hit me (All at once and not by half)

The ones I really loved to hear were the ones that made me laugh.

So now back at the beginning Dr Seuss and Silverstein,

I am trying to write funny, but sometimes it still sounds green.

My typing fingers punch the keys and my pen on paper wiggles

And I dream that kids will read my poems and I might hear them giggle.
©Mo O'Hara 2012

And lastly, poor

Meagan Monroe

Hooray! Hooray! It's National Poetry Day!
Usually the words will flow
but sadly not today.

Right time for another lemsip and bed...

So, it's goodbye from me.  And it's goodbye from them. For now.

You can now visit us on the funEverse! www.thefuneverse.com