Kids often want to know what the first poem I ever wrote was, so here it is. This poem was inspired by Shel Silverstein’s poem Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout and by the daughter of a friend of mine. Her name was Amber, and she was four years old at the time I wrote this poem. After seeing her play with her food instead of eating, and because of Shel Silverstein’s poem, I thought to write a poem about a little girl who wouldn’t eat her dinner. This poem then led to me writing more and more poems, and eventually creating this website and publishing children’s books.
Scrawny Tawny Skinner
Scrawny little Tawny Skinner
could not, would not, eat her dinner.
Though her parents begged and pleaded,
Tawny would not sit and eat it.
They tried forcing, they tried coaxing;
Tawny said “I feel like chokesing!
I’m so full, my stomach hurts.
I think I should eat dessert!”
She would not eat lima beans;
she would not eat spinach greens.
She would not eat baby peas;
she would not eat cottage cheese.
Pushing food around her plate,
she said, “Look how much I ate!”
But no scrap of food got in her,
Tawny would not eat her dinner.
She would not eat mashed potatoes,
Brussels sprouts or sliced tomatoes.
She would not eat chicken legs,
hot roast beef or deviled eggs.
Tawny closed her mouth up tight,
and would not eat a single bite.
Every minute she grew thinner,
Scrawny little Tawny Skinner.
She would not eat pizza pie;
no baked beans, not one french fry.
Though she was quite thin and bony,
she would not eat macaroni!
What came next, I hate to repeat,
could happen to you if you don’t eat.
Just what all her family feared–
she grew so thin she disappeared.
And though she was hungry an hour later,
they could not find her to reinflate her.
So next time you don’t want your dinner
think of scrawny Tawny Skinner.
