Flippity Fluppity Flop
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I´ve got a little gift for you. I`ve kept it all this time. It´s a funny little something that I wish was mine.For young children it begins with the sounds of words, and the delight of those sounds. Sounds come before meaning. Delight comes before sense. Silly nonsense turns into fun.
These little poems sound good read aloud by an adult or older child, as their true audience is children who have not yet learned to read or are just learning. Simplicity reigns, and the rhythms are often based on familiar chants or nursery rhymes, making it easy for those reading aloud to pick it up.
Nonsense poems are a much-neglected genre, but survive in our nursery rhymes, and in the work of some rare poets like A A Milne, who is an inspiration for this work. They are trickier than they look, as they can be as silly as, but not stupid. They can be surreal and bizarre, but not scary, at least too scary. They can allude to situations, but must not attempt to teach. And above all, they have to work as little songs, almost, with fun rhymes to hold them together.
Mike Johnson
Mike Johnson, fiction writer and poet, is widely regarded as one of New Zealand's most innovative writers. He lives on Waiheke Island and has taught creative writing at AUT University and the University of Auckland. In 2002 he received The University of Auckland's Literary Fellowship, having been Literary Fellow at Canterbury University in 1987. His first novel, Lear, the Shakespeare Company Plays Lear at Babylon was short listed for the New Zealand Book Awards in 1986, his novel Dumb Show won the Buckland Memorial Award for Literary Excellence in 1995, and he won the Frances Kean Award his short story, 'Magic Strings' in 1999. His first book of poetry, The Palanquin Ropes, (1983) was co-winner of the John Cowie Reed Memorial Competition. His non-fiction, Angel of Compassion, was shortlisted for the Ashton Whyle Award in 2014, and a poem from Vertical Harp, The selected poems of Li He (2006) has been anthologised in the Essential New Zealand Poems: Facing the Empty Page (Random House, 2015). Mike Johnson is the author of twenty-six books including nine books of poetry, three of shorter fiction, one non fiction, three children's books, and ten novels.
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