Little Bo-peep has lost her sheep, And cannot tell where to find ’em;
Leave them alone, and they’ll come home, And bring their tails behind ’em.
Little Bo-peep fell fast asleep, And dreamt she heard them bleating;
When she awoke, she found it a joke, For still they all were fleeting.
Then up she took her little crook, Determin’d for to find them;
She found them indeed, but it made her heart bleed, For they’d left their tails behind them.
It happen’d one day, as Bo-peep did stray Unto a meadow hard by:
There she espied their tails side by side, All hung on a tree to dry.
She heaved a sigh, and wiped her eye, And over the hillocks she raced;
And tried what she could, as a shepherdess should, That each tail should be properly placed.
My dog likes to dig, making holes in our lawn.
He digs every morning beginning at dawn.
He digs like a maniac all afternoon,
and even at night by the light of the moon.
I wish he would stop but he’s out of control,
and works up a sweat digging hole after hole.
He’s fevered and frenzied. He’s hot as can be.
His temperature’s rising degree by degree.
His workout from digging is clearly extreme.
He’s sizzling. He’s scorching. He’s starting to steam.
I wish I had gotten a fish or a frog.
Instead I just have this hot diggity dog.
ALL day long they come and go—
Pittypat and Tippytoe; Footprints up and down the hall, Playthings scattered on the floor, Finger-marks along the wall, Tell-tale smudges on the door—
By these presents you shall know
Pittypat and Tippytoe.
How they riot at their play!
And a dozen times a day In they troop, demanding bread— Only buttered bread will do, And the butter must be spread Inches thick with sugar too!
And I never can say “No,
Pittypat and Tippytoe!”
Sometimes there are griefs to soothe,
Sometimes ruffled brows to smooth; For (I much regret to say) Tippytoe and Pittypat Sometimes interrupt their play With an internecine spat;
Fie, for shame! to quarrel so—
Pittypat and Tippytoe!
Oh the thousand worrying things
Every day recurrent brings! Hands to scrub and hair to brush, Search for playthings gone amiss, Many a wee complaint to hush, Many a little bump to kiss;
Life seems one vain, fleeting show
To Pittypat and Tippytoe!
And when day is at an end,
There are little duds to mend: Little frocks are strangely torn, Little shoes great holes reveal, Little hose, but one day worn, Rudely yawn at toe and heel!
Who but you could work such woe,
Pittypat and Tippytoe!
On the floor and down the hall,
Rudely smutched upon the wall, There are proofs in every kind Of the havoc they have wrought, And upon my heart you’d find Just such trade-marks, if you sought;
Oh, how glad I am ’tis so,
Pittypat and Tippytoe!
For several years now I have been doing live, interactive webinars in conjunction with Streamable Learning, the leading provider of interactive livestreams in the K-12 market in the US and Canada. Through quality educational content and an easy-to-use platform, Streamable Learning aims to in introduce interactive livestreams as a valuable supplemental tool for classrooms and families seeking to inspire and educate their K-12 students.
During the 2019-20 school year, I will be providing 35 online webinars, including interactive poetry-writing lessons, holiday poetry sessions, and programs on famous children’s poets from Dr. Seuss to Shel Silverstein. Schools are invited to join any of these sessions as my guest, completely free of charge.
Streamable Learning and Zoom
If you haven’t yet used Zoom, I think you’re going to love it. Zoom is a free videoconferencing program similar to Skype, but with clearer, more reliable audio and video.
Streamable Learning offers a convenient, cost-effective, and comprehensive calendar of interactive livestreams delivered by subject matter experts and designed to supplement your existing and future lesson plans. To discover hundreds of engaging, educational programs, have a look a their Livestream Calendar.
I have been offering interactive poetry livestreams through Streamable Learning for several years now, and I hope you’ll be able to join me this year. There is no cost for this; you can register for free and participate in as many of these upcoming sessions as you like.
To register, simply click on the links in the schedule below for the sessions you would like to join.
If you would prefer to arrange a private interactive videoconference for your class or school only, simply click here to schedule an online author visit. I look forward to seeing your students online!
To book an online author visit, click the Book Now button below, select a date from the calendar, and scroll down to select an available time slot. Be sure to click the time zone next to “Currently Viewing” to select your time zone.
Please include the name and address of your school in the Appointment Notes. I will confirm your appointment by email. If you are outside of the US, please add a “+” and your country code before your phone number.
In this lesson, I’ll show you an easy way to write an “onomatopoeia poem,” or what I like to call an “onomatopoem,” even though that isn’t a real word. And I’ll show you why you want to include onomatopoeia in your poems.
An onomatopoeia (pronounced on-uh-mah-tuh-pee-uh) is a word that sounds like the action it describes. For example, the word “boom” sounds like an explosion, and the word “moo” sounds like the noise a cow makes.
Using onomatopoeia in a poem can engage the reader’s senses with more vivid imagery and heightened sensory impact, without having to use additional words. If your poem contains actions, it’s a good idea to include onomatopoeia in your writing. Let me give you an example. Let’s say you were writing a poem about skiing and you said:
Skiing down the snowy hill
This describes what you are doing, and the reader can certainly visualize it. But what if, instead, you said:
Swooshing down the snowy hill
Do you see how this evokes the sense of sound? If gives the reader not just a visual image of the skier, but also the sound that their skis make on the snow, and perhaps even the side-to-side motion of the skis, all without adding extra words.
Poetry Is Condensed Language
Poetry is often described as “condensed language,” meaning that it tries to convey as much meaning and feeling as possible with few words. If you are writing prose—stories, essays, etc.—you still want to be concise; to avoid using unnecessary words. But it’s also okay to be as descriptive as possible.
In poetry, on the other hand, the more meaning or emotion you can pack into just a few words, the better. With onomatopoeia your words can do double duty, conveying both meaning and sensation. Take a look at this excerpt from my poem “What to Do with a Dinosaur” from my book Revenge of the Lunch Ladies.
This morning a dinosaur tromped into school,
ferocious, atrocious, and dripping with drool.
He had to be practically twenty feet tall,
and banged around looking something to maul.
He stomped and he snorted, he bellowed and roared.
His head hit the ceiling and busted a board.
That beast was undoubtedly ready for lunch.
He snatched up a chair in his teeth with a crunch,
I’ve underlined the onomatopoeia words in these two stanzas to make them easier to spot. As you can see, these words not only describe what the dinosaur is doing, but they evoke the sounds he is making as well. Without the onomatopoeia, it would lose a lot of its impact, as you can see below.
This morning a dinosaur came into school,
ferocious, atrocious, and covered with drool.
He had to be practically twenty feet tall,
and walked around looking something to maul.
In other words, as you write, and as you edit and revise your poems, look for opportunities to replace your verbs with ones that also evoke sounds.
An Easy Onomatopoeia Poem
If you are writing rhyming poetry, sometimes you may even want to rhyme some of your onomatopoeia words. To make this as easy as possible, I have created a list of rhyming onomatopoeia words, such as bash / crash / smash, and growl / howl / yowl.
You could even write an entire poem with almost nothing but onomatopoeia words if you like. Just look at the list of rhyming onomatopoeia words and string a few together, like this:
You can write as many lines as you want like this. Then all you need is an ending. Here are a couple of ideas:
These are sounds I heard at home.
My house sounds just like a poem.
Or how about this one?
This is not some great idea.
It’s just onomatopoeia.
Now it’s your turn. If you can add a few more lines of onomatopoeia words to this, and maybe even come up with a different ending, you’ll have created your very own “onomatopoem.”
Learning More about Onomatopoeia in Poetry
If you want to learn even more about onomatopoeia in poems, here are some useful lessons:
Kenn Nesbitt, former U.S. Children's Poet Laureate, is celebrated for blending humor and heart in his poetry for children. Known for books such as "My Cat Knows Karate" and "Revenge of the Lunch Ladies," he captivates young readers globally.
Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.
Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And here is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart run away in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill, and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone forever!
Little Bo Peep
My Bed Is a Boat
My Dog Likes to Dig
Pittypat and Tipppytoe
For several years now I have been doing live, interactive webinars in conjunction with 
The Dying Fisherman’s Song
I Stuck My Finger Up My Nose
From a Railway Carriage