Food Poetry Friday: Christmas Cookies

In honor of cookie week, I wrote a poem called Christmas Cookies. Without further ado...

Christmas Cookies
by Julie Reinhardt

Green cookies
Red cookies
Candy cane stripe cookies
Drop cookies
Dot cookies
Sprinkle a lot cookies
Spritz cookies
Mince cookies
Peppermint chip cookies
Roll-out-cookies
Cut-out cookies
Eat-‘em-all-up cookies

 
The rhythm/internal rhyme scheme is one of my favorite for children's poems. Someone who does this wonderfully is Denise Fleming in her book, Beetle Bop. She illustrates her books by a method called pulp painting in which she creates the entire page by pouring shapes into handmade paper before it sets.
 
I had the amazing oportunity to attend a picture book workshop a few years ago by this hilarious and vibrant woman. She kept us laughing and cutting, cutting, cutting. Not paper, however, our words. Many of her picture books are under 100 words so every single syllable counts. Listen to a few stanzas from Beetle Bop:
 
Buzzing beetles,
humming beetles
steadily drumming beetles.
 
Big beetles
small beetles
crawl-up-the-wall beetles
 
Here is an excellent writing exersize to get a feel for the brevity needed in most picture books: Go to the library and check out a bunch of Denise Fleming's books. Type each one of them out in a separate document. Read them out loud. Once you are done, eat a few Christmas cookies.

Today's Poetry Friday round up is hosted by Susan Taylor Brown.