The folks over at Publisher's Weekly gave 'The Bubble Collector' a pretty nice review, using adjectives like 'Freewheeling', 'Wisecracking', 'Impish', 'Punchy', Screwball' and 'High-Spirited'. Thanks, Publisher's Weekly!"School, family, mealtime, animals, and imaginary creatures are among the everyday and outlandish subjects Madan visits in this freewheeling compilation of 100 poems. The poetic styles represented are just as varied, including punchy short rhymes, longer narrative poems, limericks, parodies of well-known poems, and nonsense ditties. The overall tone is more uniform, tending toward the wisecracking and impish ("Franken-Jack and Franken-Jill/ Lurching, lurching up the hill/ Testing out the new physiques/ Doctor Stein has built this week"). Another common denominator is humor (the narrator of "Things I Learned the Hard Way" shares some useful advice: "Don't stuff sausage in dad's shoe/ Don't fix broken eggs with glue/ Don't hide treasures in the waste/ Don't brush teeth with garlic paste"). Madan also plays with words for the sake of the rhyme: "Our mums make us do yoga/ They say it'll help us grow-ga/ We wear our little toga/ And quietly tiptoe-ga." The author's screwball, black-line cartoons work in tandem with the text, in some cases delivering the poems' punch lines. A high-spirited read-aloud. Ages 6–12. " - http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-4823-9761-1
The Bitter Snits
by Renee M. LaTulippe
When you hunker in a sulk,
and you slouch and you skulk
like a heaving, huffing hulk
of mad
That’s when the Bitter Snits
slither in and steal your wits–
oh, my dear, I will admit it’s
bad.
A Bitter Snit’s a wormy thing,
a niggling, wriggling, squirmy thing
that plants a nagging germy thing
deep inside your brain.
And then you start the sniveling,
your surly head goes swiveling,
your common sense starts shriveling –
oh, it’s inhumane.
If you blubber, if you bawl,
beat your hands against the wall,
Bitter Snits will come to call,
it’s plain.
So when your temper’s on the fritz
and you sink down in the pits
of your snicky-icky fits
of mope
Just remember that a smile
for a Snit is something vile
and if you do it for a while…
there’s hope.
'The Bitter Snits' Copyright © 2012 Renee M. LaTulippe
Reproduced with author's permission
Dem Bitter Snits
by Vikram Madan
WE are dem SNITS! Dem BITTER SNITS!
Dem no good restless little twits!
WE howl! WE prowl! WE stalk! WE sit!
And spread our spite where WE see fit!
WE'RE always cruising for some huff!
And specks of pout and crumbs of gruff!
An upset mind dat's feeling rough
Is where WE always plant our stuff!
WE snick and snack on common sense!
WE love to make your mind feel dense!
Once you've been breached dere's no defense
WE always quickly call our friends!
As long as dere are sulks and tears
Dere's little dat WE dread or fear!
De only ding WE cannot bear
Are signs and smells of (shudder!) cheer!
So DO NOT smile! It gives us fits!
NO SMILES! Smiles make us LOSE our wits!
You smiled? OH, NO! You've made us fritz!
For smiles destroy our SNITTER BITS ... !!!
*….Aaargh….**$&@*($*@#**....
'Dem Bitter Snits' Text & Illustration Copyright © 2012 Vikram Madan
Text and Illustration Copyright © 2012 Vikram Madan
LOST: ONE SENSE OF HUMOR
By Vikram Madan
The tale is spreading quickly;
You must have heard the rumor
I hurt my funny bone and then
I lost my sense of humor
I've looked for it all summer
I've searched afar and near
I'm feeling very dismal and
Unsmilingly severe
Hilarity eludes me
My wit induces tears
My jokes are flat as pancakes and
Repulsive to all ears
My puns are vile and pun-gent
My tales of jest appall
My gags induce much gagging and
My banter makes them bawl
Don't let this happen to you
Protect your funny bone
Or else you too might write a poem
Whose ending is a 'groan'.
I suspect I'm not the only one with whom this poem will resonate ... :)
I'm Growing Old
By John Godfrey Saxe
My days pass pleasantly away;
My nights are blest with sweetest sleep;
I feel no symptoms of decay;
I have no cause to mourn nor weep;
My foes are impotent and shy;
My friends are neither false nor cold,
And yet, of late, I often sigh--
I am growing old!
My growing talk of olden times,
My growing thirst for early news,
My growing apathy to rhymes,
My growing love of easy shoes,
My growing hate of crowds and noise,
My growing fear of taking cold,
All whisper, in the plainest voice,
I'm growing old!
I'm growing fonder of my staff;
I'm growing dimmer in the eyes;
I'm growing fainter in my laugh;
I'm growing deeper in my sighs;
I'm growing careless of my dress;
I'm growing frugal of my gold;
I'm growing wise; I'm growing,-- yes,--
I'm growing old!
I see it in my changing taste;
I see it in my changing hair;
I see it in my growing waist;
I see it in my growing heir;
A thousand signs proclaim the truth,
As plain as truth was ever told,
That, even in my vaunted youth,
I'm growing old!
Ah me! my very laurels breathe
The tale in my reluctant ears,
And every boon the Hours bequeath
But makes me debtor to the Years!
E'en Flattery's honeyed words declare
The secret she would fain withhold,
And tells me in "How young you are!"
I'm growing old!
Thanks for the years! -- whose rapid flight
My sombre Muse too sadly sings;
Thanks for the gleams of golden light
That tint the darkness of their wings;
The light that beams from out the sky,
Those heavenly mansions to unfold
Where all are blest, and none may sigh,
"I'm growing old!"
Excerpted from 'The Poems of John Godfrey Saxe: Complete Edition', James R. Osgood and Company, Boston, 1873.
MIDNIGHT HOUR
By Vikram Madan
Just past Fall and shy of Winter
Somewhere, in there, in between
On a night of chills and shadows
Swills the web of Halloween
That's when Ghouls and Ghosts and Goblins
Witches and their Wraiths convene
Riotously overdosed on
Phantasmagoric caffeine
As the midnight hour approaches
As the shivers grow unseen
Supernatural commotion
Germinates an eerie scene
Skeletons and Specters saunter
Pale and pasty, pallid, lean
Unheard music molds the darkness
Nameless terrors lurk unseen
Phantoms float and fade and flicker
Poltergeists cavort, careen
Apparitions shimmer, glimmer
Shrouded in a hazy sheen
Then, at midnight, all goes quiet.
Nothing stirs in wood or green.
Halloween's hijinks seem over
Life is, once more, safe, serene.
Or is it?
Trick or treat.
Text and Illustration Copyright © 2012 Vikram Madan
Now I just need to get me some of that 'Phantasmagoric Caffeine' ...
A Little Nap
by Vikram Madan
I’d love to take a little nap –
(Just forty winks or so)
But noise in this construction zone
is hampering my flow
The hammer's curt staccato tin-
tinnabulates my ear
The drill's insistent counterpoint
keeps stabbing through my cheer
The motor's surly grumbles send
dissonance up my core
The chisel chip-chip-chips away
what’s left of my rapport
The scraping, pouring, polishing!
The blare and racket stun!
I guess I won't be napping till
my dental work is done… :(
Copyright © 2012 Vikram Madan
Sound Effect Fonts from Blambot.Com
[I have to admit one thing though: I did not understand the ending of this poem. If you have an interpretation of the last two lines, please share your insight via a comment for the benefit of the rest of us].
Faithless Nelly Gray: A Pathetic Ballad
By Thomas Hood (1798-1845)
Ben Battle was a soldier bold,
And used to war's alarms;
But a cannon-ball took off his legs,
So he laid down his arms.
Now, as they bore him off the field,
Said he, "Let others shoot;
For here I leave my second leg,
And the Forty-second Foot!"
The army-surgeons made him limbs:
Said he, "They're only pegs;
But there's as wooden members quite
As represent my legs!"
Now, Ben he loved a pretty maid,
Her name was Nelly Gray;
So he went up to pay his devours,
When he devoured his pay!
But when he called on Nelly Gray,
She made him quite a scoff;
And when she saw his wooden legs,
Began to take them off!
"O, Nelly Gray! O, Nelly Gray!
Is this your love so warm?
The love that loves a scarlet coat
Should be more uniform!"
Said she, "I loved a soldier once
For he was blithe and brave;
But I will never have a man
With both legs in the grave!
"Before you had those timber toes,
Your love I did allow;
But then, you know, you stand upon
Another footing now!"
"O, Nelly Gray! O, Nelly Gray!
For all your jeering speeches,
At duty's call I left my legs
In Badajos's breaches !"
"Why then," said she, "you've lost the feet
Of legs in war's alarms,
And now you cannot wear your shoes
Upon your feats of arms!"
"O, false and fickle Nelly Gray!
I know why you refuse: --
Though I've no feet -- some other man
Is standing in my shoes!
"I wish I ne'er had seen your face;
But, now, a long farewell!
For you will be my death; -- alas
You will not be my Nell!"
Now, when he went from Nelly Gray,
His heart so heavy got,
And life was such a burden grown,
It made him take a knot!
So round his melancholy neck
A rope he did entwine,
And, for his second time in life,
Enlisted in the Line.
One end he tied around a beam,
And then removed his pegs,
And, as his legs were off -- of course
He soon was off his legs!
And there he hung, till he was dead
As any nail in town--
For, though distress had cut him up,
It could not cut him down!
A dozen men sat on his corpse,
To find out why he died--
And they buried Ben in four cross-roads
With a stake in his inside!
HOOD, THOMAS - Author of the "Song of the Shirt", which Punch had the honor of first publishing. Born in 1798; died in 1845. Hood was the son of a London BookSeller, and began life as a clerk. He became afterward an engraver, bur was drawn gradually into the literary profession, which he excercised far more to the advantage of his readers than his own. His later years were saddened by ill-health and poverty. Some of his comic verses seem forced and contrived, as though done for needed wages. Hood was one of the literary men who should have made of literature a staff, not a crutch. It was in him to produce, like Lamb, a few very admirable things, the execution of which should have been the pleasant occupation of his leisure, not the toil by which he gained his bread.
Thomas Hood
CURSES: A Villain-elle
By Vikram Madan
I scheme and plot and plan in vain.
Once more I gnash my teeth and sigh:
And curses, I've been foiled again!
My dream is simple, sweet and plain
To rule this world from sea to sky
I scheme and plot and plan (in vain!)
What use my I.Q., my big brain
When fate just scoffs and pokes my eye
And curses! - I've been foiled again!
My death-star, robots, spider-rain,
My dino-clones … all gone, while I,
I scheme and plot and plan in vain
For no soon have I made some gain
When up pops up some super-guy
- And curses, I've been foiled again!
I'll NEVER give up my campaign
One day I'll win and no more cry:
I scheme and plot and plan in vain,
And curses, I've been foiled again!
Text and Illustration Copyright © 2012 Vikram MadanFor more Villanelle fun, here are two of the more famous Villanelles in english poetry:
