I woke up this morning with the words of one of my poems going through my head. Why this one? I don’t know. Maybe I was dreaming about elephants, or maybe an elephant was dreaming about me. Who knows?
Anyway, since it’s Poetry Friday, I thought I’d share the opening of the poem:
Elephant
Elephant is stomping;
He is stomping and he’s clomping
He is stomping, clomping, bomping
And he’s scaring the poor…
Lion.
Lion he is roaring
He is roaring and he’s pawing
He is roaring, pawing, jawing
And he’s scaring the poor…
Bear.
Bear he is growling
He is growling and he’s howling
He is growling, howling, yowling
And he’s scaring the poor…
Hmm. What is the bear scaring? You can read the rest of the poem here, in the sample pages from my book Assembly.
If you haven’t guessed from these opening stanzas, Elephant is a circular story – one action provokes another, which in turn creates another – but, in the end, we finish up back where we started. My favourite circular story is also about elephants, and is called The King, the Mice and The Cheese. 
I have always been fascinated by these stories but Elephant is the only one I’ve managed to write to publishable standard.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy it on this Poetry Friday and that you then head off to see the other Poetry Friday posts, hosted this week by My Juicy Little Universe.
Have a great Friday!
Love this poem, Sally! I have elephants on my mind these days as the baby elephant at our local (Tucson, AZ) zoo turns one this week. It has been fun to watch her grow and learn for the past year. I love elephants. =)
Thanks Bridget. Baby elephants are awesome!
What fun! I love how you brought it back to the elephant!
Thanks Mary 🙂
I love circular stories too. What a great poem, and I can just see the page turns. Wonderful. Well done.
Thanks Joy. I would love to see this as a picture book, but although it wasn’t accepted as one, I’m glad it found a place in my collection of performance poems.
Such a fun poem. And who scares the elephant? It has to be a mouse, right?!
Right! It’s kind of predictable, but fun nonetheless.
What a fun poem! It seems like it would be so fun to perform with kids. I think I need this book!
Thanks Carol. Kids do love performing it. I often use it when I do school visits because it allows for so much audience engagement.
Ooh, I love the structure of your poem even without the circular coming around! And I remember “The King the Mice and the Cheese” so very well. I do wish we had regular assemblies in American schools at which to perform such poems…great idea for a book.
Thanks Heidi. Performance poems work well just for classroom fun as well. I was lucky enough to teach primary school drama around the time I was compiling this book, and had lots of fun with the kids coming up with ways to perform the different poems.
I love the King, the Mice and the Cheese! It makes a great read-aoud. I read it in story hours many years ago (when little ones’ attention spans seemed to be longer). “Elephant” would have made a great companion piece. Preschoolers love to make animal noises and motions.
Thanks Diane. Yes, I think the two would go well together at a story time session. Thanks for the suggestion.
Love this poem, Sally! The ending is perfect. Eek!
Thanks Laura 🙂
Love this poem. Thank you for sharing it!
Thanks Maureen – thank you for reading it 🙂