Theodor Geisel

Hello there, Listservers! I hope you’ll enjoy
A message that’s based on a Seussian ploy

If you want to write poems the Seussian way
Anapestic tetrameter brooks no delay

But Seuss saw this form in its hard, rigid glory
And said ‘Hey, I can do it, and tell quite a story

‘While doing it, too, it will be my new tool
In telling kids things that they won’t learn in school’

When he came to a line that just wouldn’t quite flourish
He’d pluck up a word from thin air, and he’d nourish

That young little word, brand new to the world
And he’d place it in just the right spot, where it whirled

Where it danced and it sang like a fresh coat of paint
Over language grown solemn and tempered and quaint

The words he invented were zong, zax and zillow
And grinch, nerd and vipper, they were bofa and yekko

They told all the stories he needed to tell
And they broke through a form that would otherwise dwell

In the musty old drawers of the humorless past
He made it seem joyous, a form that would last

In the memories of every young kid who was read
From a Dr. Seuss book before going to bed

And so, if I’m going to be true to my muse
I’ll leave with a moral that you all might just use

Dr. Seuss saw a dark thing and turned it to light
If we all do the same, the world sure will be bright.


Wesley Brown
Ardmore, PA, USA