February’s poems
More of Iona Opie’s and Rosemary Wells’s Mother Goose.
If these two poems are about “relations of ideas,” this one is about “knowledge by acquaintance”:
Or perhaps the speaker is not identifying which pigs they are, so much as deciding what will become of them.
Now, a more famous poem:
This is Samuel’s favorite in all of Mother Goose. He recites it with gusto (goose-toe). Yessir! Yessir!
Karin admires it, too. I like it that the sheep is implying: I do have wool, but not for you.
But this is not the only way of reading the poem. In Wells’s pictures, the sheep appears to be conversing with the little boy. I have wool for YOU, the sheep means (this is a more tender interpretation).
My favorite is this poem about a donkey:
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Oh, the brave old duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
and he marched them down again.
And when they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only halfway up,
They were neither up nor down.
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⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
From Wibbleton to Wobbleton is fifteen miles,
From Wobbleton to Wibbleton is fifteen miles,
From Wibbleton to Wobbleton, from Wobbleton to Wibbleton,
From Wibbleton to Wobbleton is fifteen miles.
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If these two poems are about “relations of ideas,” this one is about “knowledge by acquaintance”:
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
Whose little pigs are these, these, these?
Whose little pigs are these?
They are Roger the Cook’s,
I know by their looks –
I found them among my peas.
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
Or perhaps the speaker is not identifying which pigs they are, so much as deciding what will become of them.
Now, a more famous poem:
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
Baa, baa, black sheep,
have you any wool?
Yes, sir, yes, sir,
Three bags full.
One for the master,
and one for the dame,
And one for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.
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This is Samuel’s favorite in all of Mother Goose. He recites it with gusto (goose-toe). Yessir! Yessir!
Karin admires it, too. I like it that the sheep is implying: I do have wool, but not for you.
But this is not the only way of reading the poem. In Wells’s pictures, the sheep appears to be conversing with the little boy. I have wool for YOU, the sheep means (this is a more tender interpretation).
My favorite is this poem about a donkey:
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
If I had a donkey
that wouldn’t go,
D’you think I’d beat him?
Oh, no, no.
I’d put him in a barn
and give him some corn,
The best little donkey
that ever was born.
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯