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  #1  
Unread 03-18-2011, 07:59 AM
Roger Slater Roger Slater is offline
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Default Children's Poetry Bakeoff -- #1 musical house


My House Is an Orchestra

My house is my orchestra late in the night
when everyone else is asleep.
The fridge in the kitchen will start with a hum,
a murmur that’s low, slow, and deep.
And then, if you listen, the clock near the stairs
will decide that it’s time to begin.
And ticking and tocking, the pendulum-swinging of
click-clocking comes joining in.

The drip in the sink does the plinking, I think.
The wind makes the windows all creak.
And sometimes the rain will come whispering, too,
like voices all trying to speak.
The moan of the furnace, the squeak of the bed
as I burrow in, bundled up tight—
the tuning is over; we’re ready to start now
the music of houses at night.

So lock-it-a, sock-it-a, pock-it-a tock,
each moment a droop and a drop.
And hem-had-a, ham-had-a, him-had-a hum,
the night makes a shoop and a shop.
The speckles and spackles and spookles and spunkles
the streep and the breep and the sweep.
My house is an orchestra deep in the night,
with a peek, pock, peep.

My house is an orchestra deep in the night,
and I just can’t sleep.
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  #2  
Unread 03-18-2011, 08:00 AM
Roger Slater Roger Slater is offline
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J. Patrick Lewis:
Quote:
Despite its length, poem 1 sustains the metaphor of its title quite successfully. The imagined sounds, especially the neologisms,
have a bouncy feel to them that appeals to kids.
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  #3  
Unread 03-18-2011, 10:03 AM
Lance Levens Lance Levens is offline
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Roger

I like-it-a-lot. My only gripe is here:

And ticking and tocking, the pendulum-swinging of
click-clocking comes joining in.

The click clocking comes seems a bit clunky.
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  #4  
Unread 03-18-2011, 10:04 AM
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R. Nemo Hill R. Nemo Hill is offline
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I really enjoyed this. I was just about to drift when the poem let me know that we'd only been tuning up thus far. The mad earful of what follows is just what the doctor ordered, and the metrical blips of the little double coda are a pitch perfect finale.

Listening to the house at night is such a vivid memory of mine that I suspect this one has that universal appeal that's necessary for a children's poem. The child in me certainly recognized it. S3 seems almost a mad lullaby for the child who'll never entirely fall to sleep in the adult.

Nemo
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Unread 03-18-2011, 10:22 AM
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Marybeth Rua-Larsen Marybeth Rua-Larsen is offline
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The conceit draws me in immediately -- I've been an insomniac since birth and have always been up listening to house sounds. I love the inventiveness and playfulness of S3, which feels like the finale of an orchestral piece, one with cymbal crashes and a big crescendo. I see kids being very drawn to this.
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Unread 03-18-2011, 10:59 AM
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Maryann Corbett Maryann Corbett is offline
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Triple-meter fun. And I'll wager this was written by the poet who actually spends his working time in an orchestra.

I wonder if I'm alone in wanting a visual indication of the beats that are missing from the oom-pah-pah implied anapests of the last line--something along the lines of

My house is an orchestra deep in the night
and I Just
Can't
Sleep.
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  #7  
Unread 03-18-2011, 11:12 AM
Andrew Frisardi Andrew Frisardi is offline
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I just love that third stanza. This poem, too, is a pleasure to be had by anyone, kid or not. I'd have a hard time saying which poem today I like more.
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Unread 03-18-2011, 11:20 AM
Orwn Acra Orwn Acra is offline
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It loses a bit of steam in the second stanza, but the third provides a nice cacophonous climax. I, too, think that "click-clocking" is a queasy metrical lurch; I also agree with Maryann's suggestion for the staccato last lines. Overall, I like it, and it touches upon something a bit deeper, though only just.
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  #9  
Unread 03-18-2011, 11:57 AM
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Janice D. Soderling Janice D. Soderling is offline
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Thumbs up from here, but I stumbled the first readings on click-clocking. Might just be me.

I like Maryann's ending. It mimics the sense of falling asleep though the declaimer claims he can't.

If this is a taste of what is to come, it looks to be a terrific bake-off.
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  #10  
Unread 03-18-2011, 01:24 PM
Roger Slater Roger Slater is offline
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What makes this poem special for me isn't just the deft execution, but the whole concept of the poem. Just about everyone can identify with the experience of lying in bed (particularly as a child) and listening to the house makes noises, and yet few of us if any have given it much thought or isolated the experience as one to be described and relived in a poem. This is a children's poem in the sophisticated sense of not just being fun and lively to read, but in recognizing and isolating a distinct experience of childhood.

I would think, as well, that the poem might be useful and comforting for many children. I think for many children, the sounds that the house makes can be frightening. They may sound like intruders, animals, ghosts, or something else not quite right with the world. By turning them into an orchestra, the poem may well do what Richard Wilbur says in his poem, "A Barred Owl":

Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,
Can also thus domesticate a fear,
And send a small child back to sleep at night


Of course, in this poem the child is kept awake, but all the same . . .

I see that people are quite satisfied with the ending of the poem the way it is, as am I, but part of me wishes that the house sounds put the kid asleep at the end instead of waking him. Perhaps there could be an alternative ending for parents wishing to use this as a bedtime rhyme?
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