Last night we had a poetry party. I wish you could have joined us. To start us off, Engineer Husband read two of his favorite poems, Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost and The Wind by Christina Rossetti.

Karate Kid (age 9) recited Sing a Song of Sixpence.

Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye;
Four and twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened
The birds began to sing;
Wasn’t that a dainty dish
To set before the King?

The King was in his counting house
Counting out his money;
The Queen was in the parlour
Eating bread and honey.

The maid was in the garden
Hanging out the clothes,
When along came blackbird;
And snipped off her nose.

Brown Bear Daughter (11) had memorized Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll, but she had trouble keeping a straight face while presenting her poem. So she let Betsy-Bee (7) go ahead of her.

This poem by Kate Greenaway was Betsy-Bee’s contribution. She worked all afternoon to memorize it:

The Tea Party
By Kate Greenaway

In the pleasant green garden
We sat down to tea;
“Do you take sugar?” and
“Do you take milk?”
She’d got a new gown on
A smart one of silk.
We all were so happy
As happy could be
On that bright summer’s day
When she asked us to tea.

Brown Bear Daughter tried again and gave us a wonderful rendition of Lewis Carroll’s nonsense.

Then Z-baby(4) said her poem: Little Miss Muffet sat on a puffet, eating her curds and whey. Along came a spider and sat down beside her and frightened Miss Muffet away.

Brown Bear Daughter had another poem memorized for our edification: Eat-It-All Elaine by Kay Starbird.

Then Mom read Ogden Nash’s Custard the Dragon.

All the poetry presenters got a treat, and even the teenagers scrambled to remember some lines of poetry in order to merit a piece of chocolate.

Moral: Poetry is great, and it goes down even better with chocolate.

Happy Hearts Mom of the blog Sweetness and Light also reads poetry with her young children and helps the older ones to memorize poems. She writes about Poetry at Our House. The poems they’re memorizing? A.A. Milne, of course. The Deputy Headmistress at The Common Room has a wonderful tribute to Mr. Milne from his birthday back in January. Accept no substitutes, says she.

The next Poetry Party at our house is scheduled for Friday, April 21st. The young adults, Dancer Daughter (16) and Organizer Daughter (14), promise to contribute a poem the next time we meet.