Poetry Friday: The Music of Language

In The Art and Craft of Writing for Children (edited by William Zinsser) children’s poet Jack Prelutsky says “Poetry is many things. It’s the music of language. It’s the stuff that doesn’t have to extend to the margin. It’s the stuff that can have meter and rhythm. It’s the stuff that at its finest says things that prose cannot say…It’s distillation of experience.”
Jack distills one experience for us:


Louder Than a Clap of Thunder
by Jack Prelutsky
(From The New Kid on the Block)

Louder than a clap of thunder,
louder than an eagle screams,
louder than a dragon blunders,
or a dozen football teams,
louder than a four-alarmer,
or a rushing waterfall,
louder than a knight in armor
jumping from a ten-foot wall.

Louder than an earthquake rumbles,
louder than a tidal wave,
louder than an ogre grumbles
as he stumbles through his cave,
louder than stampeding cattle,
louder than a cannon roars,
louder than a giant’s rattle,
that’s how loud my father SNORES!


Visit Jack’s web site for more.

This week's Poetry Friday Round-Up is being hosted at Wild Rose Reader.