Our Nonsense Poems

Once a month we have what we call “Literary Lunch”. It’s a spin-off of the Brave Writer’s Poetry Teatime. Her goal behind teatime is to expose the kids to poems. My goal is to share our own writing and thoughts about things we have read. You can read more about our experience here.

Sometimes I like to give specific assignments that I want everyone to share. And sometimes I just ask them to share anything they have written lately.

This month there was a specific assignment. I got the idea from the Poetry Teatime Blog.

Poetry Prompt: Nonsense Poem

What is a Jabberwock and how does it whiffle through the tulgey wood? What’s a vorpal sword and why does it go snicker-snack? Today, we’re going to use our imaginations to create wonderful poetic nonsense that will rival even Lewis Carroll’s masterpiece, “Jabberwocky.”

Let’s begin by getting in the right frame of mind for some nonsense. Read “Jabberwocky” out loud, and be sure to act it out and use dramatic voices as much as you can. If you’ve already read “Jabberwocky” lots of times, why not check out another Carroll poem, the rather long tale of “The Hunting of the Snark”!

Now that we’ve set the scene, it’s time to talk about literary nonsense. What is a nonsense poem? It’s a poem where the important words are made up by the author. The new words can have definitions in the author’s mind, or they can be silly without any explanation. By replacing the main words with brand new words but keeping the smaller connecting words, the poem still sounds like a normal sentence in English but is full of fun, silly nonsense!

How do you do you write your own nonsense poem? There are all sorts of ways. For the first method, write a poem like you normally would. Then, erase the important words in each line. How can you tell if a word is important? It’s either a noun, a verb, an adjective, or an adverb. Replace those words with something completely made up. Then, read your poem aloud and see how different it sounds.

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Not everyone followed the rules exactly, but they all wrote a nonsense poem. Here they are below. I hope you enjoy them.

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This poem is by Faythe. She decided to just write a random poem.

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This one is by Ephram. He wrote a haiku using silly words.

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This poem is by Dyllan. The first is the poem with the made up words and the second is the real poem.

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This one is Corbin’s poem. The first is the nonsense poem and the second is the real one.

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This one was written by Braedi. She finished the original poem (the second one), but didn’t get a chance to change out all the words for the nonsense poem.

“Land ahoy!” the lookout yells
The crew begins to scramble
They get into the smaller boats 
And then they furiously paddle

Soon they’re walking on the shore
Searching for the big red “X”
One of them trips right over it
And almost breaks his neck!

With a glorious shout, he calls the crew 
to show them what he found
The crew starts digging to uncover
what was hidden deep underground.

They toil under the blazing sun
Digging a hole in the land
Anxious to know what was in the box
Buried underneath the sand.

Pretty soon the entire crew
has sweat soaked through their shirts
When finally someone hits something hard
And bends over to brush off the dirt.

With an excited yell he summons the crew 
to help him get the chest out 
They heave and pull with all their might
Then set the chest on the ground.

The crew holds their breath as the captain walks up, 
Holding the key to the box
Quickly and smilingly he inserts the key 
Into the beautiful lock.

He twists and the box lid pops open
The crew then cries out with joy
For inside the chest was the treasure
All had been hoping for!

The captain pulls out the contents: 
Marshmallows and roasting sticks
Chocolate bars, also graham crackers
The crew hungrily licks their lips

They quickly build a hot fire
And then started making their s’mores
They cooked and ate until nighttime
And then the air filled with loud snores.

When they woke up the next morning
They hurriedly cleaned up the mess
They filled up the hole and got back on their ship
To search for the next treasure chest.

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This poem is mine. The first is the nonsense poem and the second is the original poem before the words were changed.

Could you write your own nonsense poem? Feel free to share.