The following poems are from
Kenn Nesbitt's book,
My Hippo Has the Hiccups
and Other Poems I Totally Made Up
*Look for ways in which the author uses words to describe something. Make a movie or take a picture of each in your head and use your five senses to imagine the poem. (There aren't any illustrations below so you can imagine it on your own!)
Steve the Superhero
He's Steve the superhero,
and you simply won't believe
the powers he possesses
by merely being Steve.
His smile can crack a mirror
and his breath can make you faint.
And when he takes his socks off
it's been known to peel the paint.
The power in his underarms
can make a grown man cry.
A single burp can make you want
to crawl away and die.
The bad guys know it's hopeless,
so they all get up and leave
whenever they get wind of him-
the superhero Steve.
* Could you imagine (or even smell) Steve? Keep thinking of this poem as you imagine creepy, crawly things you're going to write about this week in writing class.
Willie's Wart
Willie had a stubborn wart
upon his middle toe.
Regardless, though, of what he tried,
the wart refused to go.
So Willie went and visited
his family foot physician,
who instantly agreed
it was a stubborn wart condition.
The doctor tried to squeeze the wart.
He tried to twist and turn it.
He tried to scrape and shave the wart.
He tried to boil and burn it.
He poked it with a pair of tongs.
He pulled it with his tweezers.
He held it under heat lamps
and he crammed it into freezers.
Regrettably these treatments
were of very little use.
He looked at it and sputtered,
"Ach! I cannot get it loose!
"I'll have to get some bigger tools
to help me dissect it.
I'll need to pound and pummel it,
bombard it and inject it."
He whacked it with a hammer
and he yanked it with a wrench.
He seared it with a welding torch
despite the nasty stench.
He drilled it with a power drill.
He wrestled it with pliers.
He zapped it with a million volts
from large electric wires.
He blasted it with gamma rays,
besieged it with corrosives,
assaulted it with dynamite
and nuclear explosives.
He hit the wart with everything
but when the smoke had cleared,
poor Willie's stubborn wart remained,
and Willie'd disappeared.
*Now, go back to Willie's Wart and find the creative and sometimes, unusual, words the author chose to describe everything the doctor did to that wart. Also this week in writing class, you'll have the opportunity to write about the topic, "Talk about being scared!" What frightens you?
