{"id":933,"date":"2009-04-03T11:31:53","date_gmt":"2009-04-03T18:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/?p=933"},"modified":"2013-08-02T17:16:05","modified_gmt":"2013-08-02T21:16:05","slug":"poem-3-green-eggs-and-ham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/03\/poem-3-green-eggs-and-ham\/","title":{"rendered":"Poem 3: Green Eggs and Ham<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Weren’t expecting this one next, were you? I confessed my love for Dr. Seuss<\/a> a couple of years ago, so I may as well admit that Green Eggs and Ham<\/em> is one of my favorite poems. How can you look at these lines and not smile?<\/p>\n

Do you like
\ngreen eggs and ham?
\n 
\nI do not like them,
\nSam-I-am.
\nI do not like
\ngreen eggs and ham.<\/p>\n

My favorite Dr. Seuss video ever isn’t the classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas<\/em>. Admittedly I love that to, but I delight far more in Jesse Jackson’s reading of Green Eggs and Ham<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Why do I like Green Eggs and Ham<\/em>? I KNOW Green Eggs and Ham<\/em>. At any moment, you might hear me adapting the situation in front of me into the rhyme and rhythm of the poem. Don’t believe me? Just a few minutes ago, the local NPR talk featured Virginia Governor Kaine’s veto of a bill that would "allow gun owners with concealed-carry permits to have firearms in establishments that serve alcohol, as long as they don’t drink."<\/p>\n

At the end of a related interview, a state legislator who opposed Kaine’s decision said, "People should be able to carry their guns in a bar. Or in a car." I have no idea why he tacked on that "in a car," but I was off, creating a little dialogue for Sam and the governor:<\/p>\n

Do you want
\nto hide a gun?
\n 
\nI do not want to,
\nSam-I-am.
\nI do not want
\nto hide a gun.
\n 
\nWould you hide
\none in a bar?
\nWould you hide
\none in a car?
\n 
\nI would not hide
\none in a bar.
\nI would not hide
\none in a car.
\nI do not want to
\nhide gun.
\nI do not like them
\nSam-I-am.<\/p>\n

I know. I know. Not really much of a children’s book. For it to fit the plot, the governor character will have to hide a gun, use it in some life-changing way, and then he can exclaim, "Say! I like to hide a gun! I do! I like to, Sam-I-am!"<\/p>\n

Pathetic, huh? I can summon the opening lines of The Canterbury Tales<\/em> or The Waste Land<\/em> effortlessly and I can allude to passages from hundreds of other poems—but Dr. Seuss is what comes to me most simply. It’s probably not<\/em> shocking to anyone to hear that I wish I could write children’s and young adult books.<\/p>\n

Yes, I’m an amateur medievalist who wants to be both a modern poet and Dr. Seuss. It’s a curse really. Every poem I try to write ultimately takes on a Dr. Seuss cadence:<\/p>\n

Do you want to
\neat a peach?
\nDo you want to
\nwalk the beach?<\/p>\n

It just doesn’t fit the imagery does it? Probably best for me to just read Green Eggs and Ham<\/em> (and keep my Seussian poetry to myself).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Weren’t expecting this one next, were you? I confessed my love for Dr. Seuss a couple of years ago, so I may as well admit that Green Eggs and Ham is one of my favorite poems. How can you look at these…<\/p>\n

Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[22,14],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrensya-lit","category-poetry","tag-dr-seuss"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqzI8-f3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=933"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17091,"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions\/17091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}