The Big Book of Verse for Aussie Kids Read online

  BIG

  BOOK

  of VERSE

  for Aussie Kids

  BIG

  BOOK

  of VERSE

  for Aussie Kids

  JIM HAYNES

  First published in 2009

  Copyright © Jim Haynes 2009

  Copyright in indivdual poems remains with the authors and/or trustees

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

  Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders of non-original material reproduced in this book. In cases where these efforts were unsuccessful, the copyright holders are asked to contact the publisher directly.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available

  from the National Library of Australia

  www.librariesaustralia.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 978 1 74237 084 2

  Set in 12/17 pt Electra by Bookhouse, Sydney

  Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This book is for:

  Samuel, Thomas, Penelope, Courtney, Ella, Brigid, Emma-Kate, Fionn, Angus, Charlotte, Sebastian, Niamh, Veronica, Leo and Molly

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  1 Crazy creatures

  2 All around Australia

  3 Creatures great and small

  4 Life’s a laugh

  5 Moods and feelings

  6 Epitaphs

  7 Adventure, mystery and romance

  8 Tall stories

  9 Earth, wind and water

  10 Limericks

  11 Childhood

  12 Chants and games

  13 Life lessons and advice

  14 Fun with words—crazy English

  15 Nonsense

  16 Birds

  17 Cautionary verse

  18 Tongue twisters

  19 Alphabets

  20 Gross and gruesome

  About Jim Haynes

  Introduction

  The purpose of this collection is to give kids of all ages poems to recite, act out, share and enjoy. The poems here are all rhymed verse and were included because I thought children would enjoy reading, reciting, sharing them, or hearing them read.

  I have chosen poems which have been part of our Australian culture over the generations. Most poetry Aussie kids encounter is NOT Australian, but in this collection almost half the poems are Australian in origin.

  I receive emails regularly from teachers, parents and event organisers, asking me for suitable Australian poems for assignments or competitions, or checking to see whether certain poems are ‘Australian’. This is a vexed question. Poets born here can safely be considered Australian. However, there was no Australian citizenship separate from British citizenship until after WWII, so poets born in the UK, but living in Australia, like Adam Lindsay Gordon and Will Ogilvie, are considered both Australian and British.

  When it comes to ‘Anonymous’ it is really a matter of judgement. If it sounds Australian it probably is, although many British folk poems have been adapted to become ‘Australian’. Poems written by British and American poets are obviously not Australian, even though they may be well known and popular here.

  There is a lot of non-Australian poetry written for kids in English which has historically been part of our education and childhood in Australia. Mostly it is British in origin. Writers like Alfred Noyes, Rudyard Kipling and Spike Milligan have always been popular here, as have been some American writers like Eugene Field and James Whicombe Riley.

  This is only logical as we share so much of our cultural heritage with other English-speaking nations, and British and American cultures are so much a part of our everyday modern life. I have included non-Australian poems which have general appeal to children or have been popular and well-known here and resonate with us as part of our shared heritage and language.

  Some verse will appeal to younger kids and some to older kids. I have not attempted to categorise poems for different age groups. I trust that kids will find what suits them by trial and error; parents and grandparents likewise.

  Having put together several anthologies of rhymed, recitable, supposedly entertaining poetry for Aussie adults, I have often been asked to do a collection for kids. As over thirty years of my life was spent working in schools, both as an educator and an entertainer, I have spent thousands of hours writing verse and songs with kids and talking to teachers about what kids enjoy when it comes to rhymed verse.

  Teachers often told me how difficult it was to find suitable verse for school-age kids. Organisers of poetry events and eisteddfods also had the same complaint. I knew the poems that entertained, amused, inspired and fascinated me when I was growing up, so I started by trying to remember and collect all of those. I was also aware of writers like Spike Milligan, Colin Thiele, Max Fatchen and Bill Scott, who had written very popular kids’ verse in the fifty years since I was a child.

  As several decades have passed since then, however, I began asking those acquaintances of mine, who were parents and grandparents, what verse their kids and grandkids enjoyed and read these days. I remembered reading to my nieces and buying books for them over twenty years ago, and that was a big help. My oldest niece now has four kids of her own, and that was even more help.

  It seems many of the old rhymes and poems are still as popular as ever. Parents and grandparents share the verse they knew and loved as children with their own kids and grandkids. It is also interesting that today’s children still enjoy much of the older rhymed verse, even though the language and ideas may be challenging at times.

  Sometimes sharing a poem becomes a history lesson and the process certainly extends a child’s vocabulary and helps develop imagination and creativity. We all learn by being stretched and curiosity stimulates further learning.

  When I asked kids to name their favourite poems, or asked adults to name their favourite poems from childhood, I was surprised to discover that many of them chose poems I would have thought far too old-fashioned or difficult for kids. On reflection, however, I realised that my favourites often fell into the same category. There is a lesson to be learned here: it is very easy to under-estimate the ability of kids to understand or ‘feel’ the meaning of a well-written poem, or even to enjoy something they don’t completely understand.

  If we require proof of this theory we need only look at the continued popularity of nonsense verse among both children and adults. When we enjoy nonsense verse we are often laughing at things which are entertaining because they make NO SENSE at all! Since the mid-nineteenth century, generation after generation have loved nonsense verse. There are many examples here, from the very first ‘nonsense’ poets like Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll, to twentieth-century writers like Spike Milligan and Wilbur Howcroft.

  It has been a joy re-reading all those poems and collecting well-known and lesser-known examples fo
r this book. I have laughed in a way I haven’t laughed for many years as I read them again. It was wonderful to find that kids today still enjoy them as much as I did, and still do.

  Apart from nonsense verse, there are types of rhymes that appear to have stood the test of time with kids. Chants and rhymes used for games seem as popular as ever, in spite of the media telling us kids no longer play or use their imagination. It has been fun discovering how many old-fashioned rhymes and chants, that were obviously originally associated with both physical and verbal games, have survived and still delight kids today. Of course some of these have evolved and been altered and updated, and many new ones have also appeared.

  I have had several hilarious arguments with other adults over the ‘correct’ versions of some of these ‘folk’ verses. Where it was not possible to find a definitive version I have compiled a version from several sources.

  No correspondence will be entered into about regional variations and ‘true versions’. I am certainly not an expert in children’s folk culture and playground rhymes and I plead ignorance and subjective bias!

  Mysterious, spooky, gruesome and swashbuckling tales seem to be forever popular, as are poems about creatures, both real and ridiculous. Today’s poets still write about pirates and outback heroes as well as more modern ‘adventures’, and some of the older poems by the great ‘bush’ poets will hold today’s children spellbound. Kids also obviously love reading and hearing verse which deals with modern familiar situations and subjects. I have discovered and included contemporary writers and poets who are capturing kids’ imagination in newer ways.

  As a kid I was fascinated by the amusing quirks of the English language, and the chapter called ‘Fun with words’ is really a collection of poems which are all based on exactly that—the oddities and silliness of our wonderful complex language. I have found many children share my fascination and amusement with these verses, which examine the oddities of the English language and poke fun at them.

  I realise that parents and grandparents are more likely to purchase this volume than kids themselves. To that end I have included many poems that may have delighted past generations. I have attempted to choose those which I KNOW kids today still enjoy or might find enchanting, funny or fascinating. Another reason for including these poems is that I know parents and grandparents love sharing them with their kids and grandkids. Kids also love reciting them back to their grandparents and other older audiences.

  So, I have included some poems from writers of past generations, like Rudyard Kipling and Hilaire Belloc, whose macabre sense of fun and turn of phrase still bring smiles and laughter to children’s faces, as well as gales of laughter from grandparents. At the same time I have avoided many poems which I felt used a language too archaic and dated, or dealt with topics and attitudes too outdated to be accessible to post-Victorian generations.

  I offer this volume to you as a relatively definitive collection of enjoyable, recitable, amusing verses for all Aussie generations to enjoy.

  Jim Haynes

  October 2009

  1

  Crazy creatures

  SILLY OLD BABOON

  Spike Milligan

  There was a Baboon

  Who, one afternoon,

  Said, ‘I think I will fly to the sun.’

  So, with two great palms

  Strapped to his arms,

  He started his take-off run.

  Mile after mile

  He galloped in style

  But never once left the ground.

  ‘You’re running too slow,’

  Said a passing crow,

  ‘Try reaching the speed of sound.’

  So he put on a spurt

  By God how it hurt!

  The soles of his feet caught fire.

  There were great clouds of steam

  As he raced through a stream

  But he still didn’t get any higher.

  Racing on through the night

  Both his knees caught alight

  And smoke billowed out from his rear.

  Quick to his aid

  Came a fire brigade

  Who chased him for over a year.

  Many moons passed by.

  Did Baboon ever fly?

  Did he ever get to the sun?

  I’ve just heard today

  That he’s well on his way!

  He’ll be passing through Acton at one.

  P.S. Well, what did you expect from a

  Baboon?

  CROCODILE

  Anonymous

  Row, row, row your boat

  Gently down the stream,

  If you meet a crocodile,

  Don’t forget to scream.

  MISSING PERSONS

  Colin Thiele

  The world’s most enigmatic smile,

  Belongs to Crunch, our crocodile,

  Who likes to hide in silent wait

  Beside our shrubby garden gate.

  And so, detectives sometimes come

  To question me and Dad and Mum

  About the people, big and small,

  Who seem to vanish when they call.

  And nothing comes of it, of course,

  Although we suffer some remorse,

  For, as they seek a sign or clue,

  Detectives seem to vanish too.

  GO ANNA GO

  Peter Winkler

  Way out in the bush in an old gum tree,

  As far from the city as you can be,

  There’s a lizard with a claim to fame,

  Let me tell you Anna is her name

  She’s the fastest runner under the sun

  Every race she’s run she’s always won.

  Go Anna, go Anna, go Anna, go!

  Go Anna, go Anna, don’t go slow!

  People used to think she was kind of slow

  They didn’t know those little legs could go

  One day a dingo and her pup

  Decided to catch her and eat her up

  The other animals saw the show

  And they all yelled, ‘Go Anna Go!’

  Go Anna, go Anna, go Anna, go!

  Go Anna, go Anna, don’t go slow!

  She ran like mad. She knew she must

  She left those dogs in a cloud of dust

  Now she’s the winner of every race

  No one back o’ Bourke can match her pace

  She’s faster than the kangaroos

  Some even say she’ll beat emus.

  Go Anna, go Anna, go Anna, go!

  Go Anna, go Anna, don’t go slow!

  So if you’re out in the Aussie sun

  And you see Anna going for a run

  Be careful not to get in her way

  She may surprise you come what may

  She won’t run away. Here’s what she’ll do

  She’ll think you’re a tree and run up you.

  Go Anna, go Anna, go Anna, go!

  Go Anna, go Anna, don’t go slow!

  THE CRAFTY CROCODILE

  Wilbur Howcroft

  The crocodile is full of guile, he loves to

  perch in trees

  And hypnotise the bugs and flies then eat

  them at his ease.

  He leaps with glee from tree to tree and

  carols merrily—

  His only care his falling hair, or else his

  ‘housemaid’s knee’.

  He takes great pains each time it rains to

  keep from getting damp;

  ’Cos moisture shrinks his armour links

  and brings on painful cramp.

  At close of day he slinks away (he’s

  frightened of the dark),

  He creeps inside some secret hide and

  blocks his ears with bark.

  Come morning light he might invite

  some lady croc to dine

  On bindi-eyes and crayfish pies washed

  down with gum-tree wine.

  The crocodile will always smile and hug

  hi
mself with glee

  At folk who run from having fun—like

  maybe you and me?

  ANTS IN THE CUP

  Russell Hannah

  The ants were playing soccer in my saucer,

  And I heard a little voice say ‘Smarten up!’

  It was their coach who said they must

  play better,

  Because next week they were playing in

  the ‘cup.’

  CENTIPEDE SOCCER

  Russell Hannah

  Spare a thought for the centipedes,

  Who played in The Creatures’ World Cup,

  With so many legs to kick the ball,

  Their team was all fired up.

  They trained and trained for years and years,

  They were a favoured side,

  But when their first game came around,

  They were disqualified!

  They didn’t make the ground in time,

  To play against the Newts,

  They were all still in the dressing room

  Putting on their boots.

  FUR AND FEATHERS

  AB ‘Banjo’ Paterson

  The emus formed a football team

  Up Walgett way;

  Their dark-brown sweaters were a dream

  But kangaroos would sit and scream

  To watch them play.

  ‘Now, butterfingers,’ they would call,

  And such-like names;

  The emus couldn’t hold the ball

  —They had no hands—but hands aren’t all

  In football games.

  A match against the kangaroos

  They played one day.

  The kangaroos were forced to choose

  Some wallabies and wallaroos

  That played in grey.

  The rules that in the West prevail

  Would shock the town;

  For when a kangaroo set sail

  An emu jumped upon his tail

  And fetched him down.

  A whistler duck as referee

  Was not admired.

  He whistled so incessantly

  The teams rebelled, and up a tree

  He soon retired.

  The old marsupial captain said,

  ‘It’s do or die!’

  So down the ground like fire he fled

  And leaped above an emu’s head

  And scored a try.

  Then shouting, ‘Keep it on the toes!’

  The emus came.

  Fierce as the flooded Bogan flows