Poetry Stretch Results - Homework

The challenge this week was to write about homework. Here are the results.

Homework
by Kate Coombs of Book Aunt

My teacher assigned me to write a report
on the habits of honeybees.

I wish she had asked about habits of kids—
I know a lot more about these.

For example, "Please tell where the animal lives."
I know just where kids can be found.

They spend time in classrooms, or on monkey bars,
dangling their heads upside down.

What do they eat? Hamburgers with catsup,
or pizza, taquitos, and chips.

Plus ten kinds of candy and slurpies and slushees
that give them strange colors of lips.

We have to report on communication,
and kids do a whole lot of that.

"No, you can't make me go to the dentist!"
Plus meowing right back at the cat.

Behavior: kids play on computers and text
or spend time interacting with balls.

They can also be seen with markers of green
writing words on the living room walls.

Too many people write about bees
and their boring behavior in the wild.

But I would be happy to write a report
on the habits of the human child.

--Kate Coombs, 2010, all rights reserved


Amy Ludwig VanDerwater of The Poem Farm shares a poem entitled Homework Spot.


NO HOMEWORK
By Steven Withrow of Crackles of Speech

No ravenous dog.
No Martian invasion.
No thirty-mile slog
To a family occasion.
No sudden swine flu.
No CIA visit.
I’d homework to do.
You wonder, “Where is it?”
No grandmother died.
No nibbled by mouses.
No night trapped inside
The most haunted of houses.
No transformer crashed
Blacking out my whole block.
No asteroid smashed
Shelling me such a shock
That the part of my head
Where I store my assignments
Was tattered to shreds
And knocked out of alignment.
No bully’s reprisal.
No baby bro’s vomit.
No search of the skies
For a hundred-year comet.
No freak springtime snow.
No lottery winnings.
No open bus window.
No game past nine innings.
You say, “Give it here.
No lies. No excuses.”
Is this the cold fear
That NO HOMEWORK induces?


Home Work
by Heidi Mordhorst of My Juicy Little Universe

Reading Log: Friday 6:35 am
The Great Brain, Chapter One
Read "The Magic Water Closet"
out loud in the bathroom
while first-grader
with mercenary tendencies soaks
filthy fingernails in the tub.

Upper Elementary Media Studies: Saturday 8:30 pm
In 90 minutes, conceive, cast, script, make up and costume four amateur actors for a short film entitled "Small Talk: the YouTube talk show about everything too insignificant to matter!" Extra credit for including a theme song to the tune of "Heart and Soul."

Advanced Logistics: Saturday, 10 am
If travel time from home to
Camp Open House Destination A
is 30 minutes and travel time from there to
Camp Open House Destination B
is an additional 20 minutes,
and if Soccer Game A begins at 1:30
and Soccer Game B begins at 12:50,
1)how many cars are needed,
2)which Camp Open House Destination should be visited first, and
3)at what time should each Parent-Child pair depart for soccer?

Math Basic Facts: Sunday 12:20 pm
Mother's Day Smoked Salmon Spread
12 ounces smoked salmon =
16 ounces cream cheese.
Our smoked salmon says "NET WT 4 OZ".
How much cream cheese should we use,
which of the half-dozen plants
in the herb garden is the dill,
and where does the Wizard of Oz
come in?


Homework: Become a Snake
by Laura Purdie Salas

My editor said,
“Write a poem
about this picture”

Slithery snake
wearing a sly smile…
two tiny pink mouse feet
and one whip-slip tail
disappearing down
the snake’s throat

Couldn’t I just conjugate
“to swallow” in Latin?

Or write a 500-word report
on the habits and habitats of corn snakes?

Or diagram snake anatomy,
including spine and stomach, heart and fang?

But I am a writer, a poet, a magician.

I must be the snake,
undulate my muscles across fields,
soak August sun into my scales,
and feel the crunch of fragile mouse inside my mouth

and like it

--Laura Purdie Salas, all rights reserved


NOT AGAIN
©By Mary Nida Smith of Life's Beautiful Path

Ah, Mom
Homework
Not again tonight.
I know,
You told me before
If I do all my homework
I’ll be smarter tomorrow.

Ah, Mom
I am already smart.
I don’t have time,
There is much
To do outside
Like exploring
And learning
About nature.

Ah, Mom
Can’t I have any fun?
Yes, Mom, I’ll hurry
I’ll do my homework
So, I’ll be smarter
Tomorrow.

Ah, Mom
When I grow up
I’ll never do homework.
I’ll play and explore
While I tell
My kids that story,
Do your homework
You’ll be smarter tomorrow.

Ah, Mom
Not again!


A tanka
by Diane Mayr of Random Noodling

his pencil breaks...
he slips out of his seat
to hug the dog
and to be reassured that
he's still a good boy


Coming Soon (I Hope)
By Liz Korba of Correspondence.org

Someway, somewhere, someday
I know
They’ll make a homework pen.
Someway, somewhere, someday
For sure -
(Can hardly wait ‘til then.)
And YES
I will be buying one
Somehow, right there, that day.
This pen will do my homework –
Oh, at last, free time to play!

It's not too late if you still want to play. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll add it to the results.