A thread neither mad nor sad.

[kandrathe]

Hi,
And why should it not? :)

We start infants off with such priceless treasures as "One fish, two fish, red, fish, blue fish".  Kids love the rhyme and rhythm, the word play of this poetry which is at a level they can understand.  This love is reinforced in good children's programming (Sesame Street and The Electric Company for example).

And then we send them to school where all interest in the language is killed with "see spot run" and 'stories for children' written by incompetent hacks.  So much so that, as adults, many cannot even think of any poem, much less a favorite poem.

--Pete
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Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Will there be enough room? At times I have to hide this book from my two year old to give my brain a rhythmic holiday for a day. He really loves the rhyming stories read seemingly hundreds of times in a row. Also, Dr. Seuss, Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb -- "Millions of fingers! Millions of thumbs! Millions of monkeys, Drumming on drums!" Of course, Daddy does it with a Thespian flair.

My favorite poem is;

If -- by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!