Jack Prelutsky is a VERY
WEIRD author of children's poetry. I love his work, (is is
silly..) even though I did not discover it until I was an adult.
Jack Prelutsky was born in Brooklyn, in 1940, and attended Hunter College in New York City. Although he claims to have hated poetry through most of his childhood (In grade school he had a teacher who left him with the impression that poetry was the literary equivalent of
liver.), he rediscovered poetry later in life, and has devoted many years since to writing poetry aimed specifically at
kids. After stints as a truckdriver, photographer, folksinger, and more, he is now the author of more than thirty collections of original verse and anthologies of children's poetry, including The Queen of Eene (1976), Nightmares: Poems to Trouble Your Sleep (1978), The Random House Book of Poetry for Children (1983), and The New Kid on the Block (1984). Prelutsky lives in Washington state, and spends much of his time presenting poems to
children in
schools and libraries throughout the United States.
Here are a couple of his poems.
As soon as Fred gets out of bed,
his underwear goes on his head.
His mother laughs, "Don't put it there,
a head's no place for underwear!"
But near his ears, above his brains,
is where Fred's underwear remains.
At night when Fred goes back to bed,
he deftly plucks it off his head.
His mother switches off the
light
and softly croons, "Good night! Good night!"
And then, for reasons no one knows,
Fred's
underwear goes on his toes.
___________________________________
Last night I
dreamed of chickens,
there were chickens everywhere,
they were standing on my stomach,
they were nesting in my hair,
they were pecking at my
pillow,
they were hopping on my head,
they were ruffling up their feathers
as they raced about my
bed.
They were on the chairs and tables,
they were on the chandeliers,
they were roosting in the corners,
they were clucking in my ears,
there were chickens,
chickens, chickens
for as far as I could see...
when I woke today, I noticed
there were
eggs on top of me.