Mr. Brown the Circus Clown
Mr. Brown, the circus clown
puts his clothes on upside down.
He wears his hat upon his toes
and socks and shoes upon his nose.
He ties his ties around his thighs
and wraps his belt around his eyes.
He hangs his earrings from his hips
and stockings from his fingertips.
He puts his glasses on his feet
and shirt and coat around his seat.
And when he’s dressed, at last he stands
and walks around upon his hands.
Backward poems are one of the most fun types of poems to write. A “backward poem” is a poem in which everything is done in reverse of what you would usually expect. Often they are written about a “backward” person. For example, Shel Silverstein has a very famous poem called “Backward Bill” from his book A Light in the Attic, and Douglas Florian wrote a well-known poem called “Mr. Backward” in his book Bing, Bang, Boing. My poem “Mr. Brown the Circus Clown” from The Armpit of Doom is also an example of a backward poem.
To write a backward poem, start by giving your backward person a name, such as “Backward Bill” or “Mr. Backward,” and maybe deciding where they are from. Then try rhyming the next line, like this:
Backward Bob from Backwardtown
is backward, flipped, and upside down.
Now make a list of things that a backward person might do or say or have. For example, a backward person might wear his hat on his feet. Or he might have a cat that barks and a dog that meows. See if you can come up with several ideas like this and make a rhyming list, like this:
He wears his hat upon his feet
and wanders backward down the street.
His dog meows. His kitten barks.
His baby goldfish chases sharks.
You can add as many couplets (a “couplet” is two lines that rhyme) as you like to your list to make it as long as you want. For example, I thought of a few more things that Backward Bob might do:
His ears are blue. His nose is green.
He drives a purple submarine.
He eats his lunch when he’s asleep
and washes in a garbage heap.
When you are writing a simple, descriptive poem – that is, a poem that describes someone or something, rather than telling a story – it’s okay to end your poem more or less the same way you started it. So you might write a couple of lines to end the poem like this:
And when he laughs he wears a frown.
He’s Backward Bob from Backward town.
Once you’ve got your list and your beginning and end, just put it all together and, voila, you’ve got a shiny new backward poem, just like that.
Backward Bob
Backward Bob from Backwardtown
is backward, flipped, and upside down.
He wears his hat upon his feet
and wanders backward down the street.
His dog meows. His kitten barks.
His baby goldfish chases sharks.
His ears are blue. His nose is green.
He drives a purple submarine.
He eats his lunch when he’s asleep
and washes in a garbage heap.
And when he laughs he wears a frown.
He’s Backward Bob from Backwardtown.
This lesson plan uses several poems from Poetry4kids.com to show how to identify the rhyme scheme of a poem. Students will analyze the poems to determine the rhyme schemes of each.
Click here for a printable copy of this lesson plan for use in the classroom.
Rhyming words are words that sound the same at the ends, such as cat / hat, or jumping / bumping.
When a poem has rhyming words at the ends of its lines, these are called “end rhymes.” Here is an example of end rhyme:
My cat is nice.
My cat likes mice.
A “rhyme scheme” is a way of describing the pattern of end rhymes in a poem. Each new sound at the end of a line is given a letter, starting with “A,” then “B,” and so on. If an end sound repeats the end sound of an earlier line, it gets the same letter as the earlier line.
Here are three slightly different cat poems, each with a different rhyme scheme. The first is AABB, the second is ABAB, and the third is ABCB):
| My cat is nice. My cat likes mice. My cat is fat. I like my cat. |
A A B B |
| My cat is nice. My cat is fat. My cat likes mice. I like my cat. |
A B A B |
| My cat is gray. My cat is fat. My cat is cute. I like my cat. |
A B C B |
Exercise:
Mr. Brown the Circus Clown
Mr. Brown, the circus clown
puts his clothes on upside down.
He wears his hat upon his toes
and socks and shoes upon his nose.
Rhyme scheme: _____________
My Penmanship is Pretty Bad
My penmanship is pretty bad.
My printing’s plainly awful.
In truth, my writing looks so sad
it ought to be unlawful.
Rhyme scheme: _____________
All My Great Excuses
I started on my homework
but my pen ran out of ink.
My hamster ate my homework.
My computer’s on the blink.
Rhyme scheme: _____________
Today I Had a Rotten Day
Today I had a rotten day.
As I was coming in from play
I accidentally stubbed my toes
and tripped and fell and whacked my nose.
Rhyme scheme: _____________
My New SchoolYou won’t believe the crazy things
I’m learning how to do.
I’m learning how to juggle,
ride a unicycle, too.
I now know how to twist balloons
in many different shapes
and how to make a costume
out of multicolored drapes.
I’ve learned to run in floppy shoes
and how to dye my hair.
I’ve even learned the graceful art
of dancing with a bear.
For when we moved, my parents looked
at many different towns,
but chose a place with just one school:
a school for circus clowns.