Furthermore: Where the Headlines Take You

Silly Poems

It is a grand day for poetry! Every Thing On It, a book of newly-published poems by the great Shel Silverstein was released today. While you wait for the library's copies to be ready to check out (they're coming soon, I promise!), you can reacquaint yourself with Silverstein's classic poetry collections A Light in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends. But, you could also take this opportunity to try out some other classic books of silly poetry! These are two of my favorites:

I really developed a taste for this genre of literature when I encountered Edward Lear. The collection The Nonsense Verse of Edward Lear includes his most famous "The Owl and the Pussy-cat," but there are many other, lesser-known gems here too. For example, here's an excerpt from from "Mrs Jaypher": "Mrs Jaypher said, 'it's safer / If you've lemons in your head; / First to eat, a pound of meat, / And then to go at once to bed."

Genius, no? This particular collection has the virtue of being large and therefore chock-full of nonsense, and it also has lovely illustrations by John Vernon Lord.

If this isn't enough silliness for you, it's time to turn to another master of the ridiculous, Roald Dahl. Vile Verses contains dozens of silly poems illustrated by a wide variety of artists. Many are favorites from Dahl's novels for children – for example, "Centipede's Favourite Song," from James and the Giant Peach, which has some really excellent first  lines: "Once upon a time / When pigs were swine."  Once upon a time indeed.

Of, course, the library has many, many other volumes of silly poetry!  To see more, try searching the library catalog for the subjects Nonsense verses and Humorous poetry. And don't forget, you can always get reading recommendations tailored to your interests by using our Good Reads service!  Just go to the Readers page on the library's website and click on "Looking for a good read?" (Or, you could click on the link over on the right side of this blog!)