CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS
WRITING POETRY WITH MY GRANDSON, VINCE
While visiting my son, Nolan, and his wife Tammy, in Cleveland, five-year old Vince saw newspaper photographs of Rashard Mendenhall, Etan Thomas, and Fernando Perez, all sports figures*. Vince is an ace in sports.
I took the opportunity to tell Vince that each of these sports figures wrote poems. Perhaps, I said, Vince and I should write a poem.
I asked him to give me two words that rhymed. He picked “climb” and “prime.” He didn’t know what they meant, so I suggested he pick easier words. He then came up with “snow” and “hoe.”
Between us, we managed to come up with the following poem:
If you have a hoe
You can scrape the snow
In winter.
If you have a hoe
You can make a hole
In summer.
Vince elaborated on the poem: you can put stuff in the hole, a treasure or gold, without a treasure chest. People or pirates do this.
The next two words were “cheese” and “peas.”
I tried Swiss cheese
I didn’t like it.
I tried a green pea
I really liked it.
Vince’s next two words were “pog” and “frog.”
A frog can live in a pog.
What’s a pog?
A frog can live on a log.
No, he runs out on a lily path in a bog.
How about “Vince” and “mince?” Since mince was a new word for him, he couldn’t come up with anything until I explained what this word meant.
You might want to take celery to mince,
But you shouldn’t take Vince to mince.
Then there is “hog” and “dog. This one became a very short story rather than a poem: A dog made a hog and started to play with it, and they became best friends. The end.
I suggested “red” and “head,” while Vince added “bed,” “shred,” and I added “spread.” Here goes:
Vince saw an incredible red,
On somebody else’s head.
They were laying in bed…
Covered in a shred red spread.
I suggested “candy,” Vince added “pandy,” and I suggested “Sandy” (his aunt’s name):
Sandy ate a lot of candy
And Pandy joined Sandy
To eat all the candy.
Finally, Vince returned to his very first suggestion, football a player named “Pryor” and the name “Myer.” The following poem was the result:
A football player named Pryor
Had a best friend named Myer.
Myer did not like football,
He preferred going to the mall.
Vince added prose to this poem: Pryor went to the mall to play football, and then Myers started to like football, and joined in and became a football player who scored 100 touchdowns in one game. And every time he scored a touchdown, the other team pushed him down real hard, and a fight started. The referees were close to stopping the fight but Myers stopped it.
By now, Vince was through coloring, which he had been doing while he and I were composing these poems. And the brief writing session ended.
Such is the life of a grandparent with a grandchild. Fun, creativity, and laughter—the way things ought to be.
*Fernando Perez, Tampa Bay Rays, baseball; Ethan Thomas, Oklahoma City Thunder, and Rashard Mendenhall, Super Bowl Champ, Pittsburgh Steelers. In article “So you think you can write,” USA Weekend, Dec. 18-20, 2009.
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ADDITIONAL READING:
TIMES CHANGE: FROM A KITCHEN TO AN OFFICE GRANDMOTHER
WISDOM FROM A CHILD TO A GRANDPARENT
Spring…the joy and pathos of the…DANDELION
STARTLED BY A CRITTER IN THE CAR!
