Time for another poem about everything book-related. This time not by famous American poet Emily Dickinson, but from the much lesser known X. J. Kennedy. Kennedy is an American poet, translator, anthologist, editor and author. He wrote children’s literature and poems and he has also written textbooks on English literature and poetry (which is how I eventually found him on Goodreads). The poem I chose was first published in Good Books, Good Times! in 1990, and then again in Jumping Off Library Shelves in 2015.
I’d Like a Story
X.J. Kennedy (1990)
I’d like a story of
Ghosts on gusty nights,
Wild island ponies galloping
With manes that wave like kites,
A book that knows the lowdown
On what to feed giraffes,
A book of nutty nonsense
That’s nothing much – just laughs –
A book to read to find out
How basketball stars shoot,
Why dinosaurs all died out,
What do computers compute,
Which sail a mizzen sail is,
Can Martians really be,
How heavy a blue whale is,
Weighed side by side with me –
A book to curl in bed with,
To browse in by a brook –
Anytime!
Anyplace!
I’d like any book!
Happy reading,
Loes M.