Tag: poem

“Where Art Thou, Mother Christmas?”

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Information

  • This poem was published as a charity Christmas card to benefit the Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital in England.

Plot Description

Spoiler warning! This poem is an ode to Mother Christmas. The narrator wonders why we never hear of her. He bets that she buys all the gifts and wraps them while Father Christmas takes all the credit. “Down with Father Christmas, that unmitigated jerk!”

“Veruca Salt, the little brute…”

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Plot Description

Spoiler warning! This song is sung by the Oompa-Loompas after the squirrels throw Veruca and her parents down the garbage chute in the Nut Room. They discuss the nasty rotten bits of garbage that will become Veruca’s new friends. They also say that it’s not all Veruca’s fault; her parents were the ones that spoiled her in the first place. That’s why they’ve gone down the chute as well.

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“The Tummy Beast”

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Plot Description

Spoiler warning! A little boy tells his mummy that he has a person in his tummy. It talks to him at night in bed and demands to be fed. It tells him to sneak cookies from the tin. The boy knows it’s wrong to guzzle food all day, but he can’t help it, not with the person in his tummy. His mother accuses him of lying. “You are the greedy guzzling brat! / And that is why you’re always fat!” The boy tries again to explain but his mother sends him to bed. Just then his stomach begins to rumble and grunt and shake. A voice shouts, “I’m getting hungry! I want eats! / I want lots of chocs and sweets!” The boy asks his mother if she believes him now… but she’s fainted away on the floor.

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“The Tortoise and the Hare”

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Plot Description

Spoiler warning! The Tortoise is upset because the Hare has invaded his favourite dining spot – Mister Roach’s vegetable patch. So he formulates a plan. He challenges the Hare to a race and produces a contract that says the loser will stay away from the vegetable patch. The Hare agrees and signs. That night, the Tortoise pays a visit to Mister Rat, a brilliant engineer and corrupt businessman. The Tortoise offers to pay him to build a small motor-car that can be concealed within the Tortoises’s shell. After Rat takes the job (and Tortoises’s money), he calls the Hare and asks him how much he would pay to know of an evil plot against him. Hare is furious and pays to learn of Tortoise’s scheme. When Rat points out that nothing in the race contract forbids cheating, the Hare believes he will lose. Rat offers to make sure that he doesn’t – for a fee. The Hare pays up. The next day before the race, the Rat dumps a load of spiky nails across the track. The race begins and the Tortoise is far ahead in the lead. Just as he thinks he’s going to win, all four tires go flat. The Hare is thrilled until he too steps on the spiky nails. They both agree to call the race a draw. Meanwhile the Rat went home and counted all his pay. “So just remember if you can, / Don’t tangle with a business man. / It doesn’t matter who you choose, / They always win, we always lose. / If you were here and I was there, / If you were Tortoise, I was Hare, / We’d both get diddled in the end / By people like our Ratty friend.”

“The Toad and the Snail”

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Plot Description

Spoiler warning! The narrator is a little boy who loves playing in the lily-pond. One day he meets a giant frog there. The frog asks the boy to admire his legs. The boy tells the frog he looks like the boy’s Aunt Emily. The frog offers to take the boy for a ride. The boy climbs on and the frog jumps. With each leap they travel fifty miles! They have tea at the Cliffs of Dover and the frog wonders if he could leap across the Channel to France. They decide to give it a try. They soar across the sea and land in a funny little French village. Immediately people come out of their houses and run towards the frog with carving knives. You see, in France they do many things differently, like using the metric system. And they eat snails and frogs! They love to chop off frog legs and fry them in dripping. The whole town was excited to see such a large toad and wanted to eat him up. The boy tells the frog that perhaps they should escape. The frog explains that he is a MAGIC TOAD and loves to come to France to tease the people. He pushes a button on his head and suddenly he turns into a giant snail. Of course, the French people love snails and are even more determined to eat him up. The boy gets scared again, but the snail pulls a lever on his shell and turns into the “gorgeous, glamorous, absurd / enchanting ROLY-POLY BIRD”! He flies away with the boy on his back. They return home to the lily pond. The boy says he never told anyone about his trip because they wouldn’t believe him. “But you and I know well it’s true. / We know I jumped, we know I flew. / We’re sure it all took place, although / Not one of us will ever know, / We’ll never, never understand / Why children go to Wonderland.”

“The Three Little Pigs”

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Plot Description

Spoiler warning! This poem starts out with a tribute to pigs, but then the narrator notes that some pigs aren’t very clever. One pig, for instance, built his house of straw. A Wolf saw the house, blew it down, and ate the pig inside. Soon he came to another house of sticks, and again this house was blown down and the inhabitant eaten. The Wolf then came to a third house, this one made of bricks. Much to his dismay, he couldn’t blow it down. He yelled to the pig inside that he was going to return and blow it up with dynamite. The pig decided to call for help. He telephoned Miss Riding Hood and explained that he heard she had some experience dealing with wolves. She agrees to come right over. When she gets there, she shoots the Wolf dead and the pig cheers. “Ah, Piglet,” says the narrator, “You must never trust / Young ladies from the upper crust. For now, Miss Riding Hood, one notes, / Not only has two wolfskin coats, / But when she goes from place to place, / She has a PIGSKIN TRAVELING CASE.”

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