Our last class was a few days before Thanksgiving, so I brought in Bill Knott‘s fantastic poem, “Feeding the Sun.” It begins, “One day we notice that the sun / needs feeding,” and the people in the poem “fill rockets / with wheat, smoke-rings, razorblades,” and other oddities such as cattle, rivers, windmills, aborigines, planets, moons, and asteroids, but nothing stops the sun from becoming “stubbornly / smaller, paler.” Finally, after running out of “things to feed the thing,” they start shipping themselves. The poem concludes with the people wondering if they’ve satisfied the sun’s hunger.
We talked about the things sent rocketing to the sun. Did they make sense? Why send razorblades, for example, and wouldn’t rivers extinguish the fire of the sun, or windmills blow it out? Of course, none of this is very realistic, but they still seem like unusual choices, the most strange being the people sending themselves to feed the sun. I then asked if burning something was like eating something, and we considered how different things—paper, wood, metal—turn to ashes or melt in fire; as they disintegrate, isn’t it a lot like how food is chewed or dissolved in our mouths?
The idea this week was to write a food poem. I wrote the words metaphor and simile on the board and asked if any students knew what they meant? Both are methods we use to compare two things that are often unalike, and I asked that Skinner’s young poets use comparison in their poems as well. Here they are!
Ms. Rupp, 2nd Grade
Turkey
Aadi K.
My favorite
thing for
Thanksgiving
is a cooked
turkey. It
is as delicious
as an amusement
park. I like
the turkey
so much.
Chocolate…EW!
Eliana K.
I don’t like chocolate.
Chocolate is like a bee hive.
So bad, Chocolate I hate
you and your smell. EW!
Just don’t make me eat
you. Chocolate is so bad for me.
EW! chocolate! Chocolate is
disgusting!
Chocolate vs. Ice-Cream
Shridhar M.
Chocolate is like an A on your
paper for
report card.
Ice-cream is like clouds
with sugar.
Chocolate + ice-cream tastes
like heaven.
My Food
Maya M.
Chocolate!!!!! Good as
a summer breeze or a summer
shore. Tomato yuk as a mud
puddle. Chocolate covered strawberries good
as ice cream.
A Pepper Story
Thomas M.
Once upon a time there lived a pepper
he smelled as bad as a backpack.
Then he went into Thomas’ backpack.
Then my mom found it on the floor he chopped
it up she made me eat it up it tasted
like an overcooked onion.
I Don’t Like Olives
Lindsay P.
I don’t like olives.
They look like
eyeballs.
I really don’t
like olives. Olives
are like an F
on my paper.
I really don’t
like olives.
Ms. Beaudry, 2nd Grade
Apple Crisp and a Rose
Livvy A.
Apple crisp is like a rose because
they both are so good. Mostly they
are both red but some can
be others. They also are good
smelling.
Dessert Is Delicious
Adrija D.
Dessert is delicious like my
best friend. Dessert is delicious
like a comfy pillow. It just
swirls in your mouth, and it
rests while you are finished.
I cannot even stop
eating it.
Food Is Fun
Ailey K.
Vanilla good as a comfortable
warm bed chocolate like a warm
fur jacket but together they
become a beautiful soft flavor
as rich as the moon light
cotton candy vs. gummy bears
who will win, run, run as fast
as you can you can’t catch
me I’m the gummy bear
man and gummy bears win
Stinky Zucchini
Ila L.
Stinky
Zucchini
Stinky zucchini
Is a really gross food
Stinky zucchini tastes
Like a sock a stinky sock
That makes me a little stinky
Stinky stink oh what a stinky
Zucchini is like a bad rainy stinky day
That I will never like.
Goods and Bads
Madeline M.
My favorite food is as
great as my best friends
with me. My least
favorite foods are
as bad as my
brother. If the
food was not my
favorite, and not
my least favorite
now that’s as good
and bad as my two
fluffy dogs.
Ms. Schwartz, 2nd Grade
Pizza
Maquan B.
Pizza smells just like fried cheese
that pizza sauce smells so good
I can just faint. Me I eat
pizza like a baby. I get it on
my pizza face. Mmmmmmm pizza
is delicious.
Ice Cream
Rakiyah C.
Ice cream is my
favorite food in
the whole wide
world it is
just like snow
they both melt
they both look
alike but snow
is just white
and doesn’t have
any taste to
it.
Untitled
Rakiyah H.
The food that I like is marshmallows
it tastes so good that it tastes like
pizza.
Yum!
Untitled
Caden K.
food food I say my favorite
food is probably pasta I’ll
compare it to buttered toast
because it is soft and really
good with buttered red sauce
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Daniel R.
I hate turkey
and I like
pumpkin pie and the
pumpkin pie was
an evil monster
and the pumpkin pie
was eating
pepper.
Ms. Ward, 2nd Grade
Thanksgiving Time Baby!
Kennedy B.
I eat turkey like it is candy. It’s
weird but I am telling the truth.
When I eat salad I feel like
I am eating dirt.
It’s healthy but I hate it.
My favorite food for Thanksgiving
is cake.
Cake is as good as heaven.
It’s heavenly.
Everyday I would want to
eat it but I could not.
Untitled
Harmony H.
I like sweet corn bread because…
It is so sweet and good and it
tastes like super sweet candy. And I
hate mushroom it tastes like a goat’s
gut. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
Foods
Balin N.
Spinach is as yucky as a
worm. Chili is as yucky as
a bathroom.
My Head
Alex R.
Pizza
is
not
always
good
sometimes it is
hard
it’s hard
as
a rock
I
bang my hand on
it
it makes me
wiggle
it makes a sound
Bang, bang, bang
and
I don’t
do it again.
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Leilani R.
One time I ate
zucchini it was as nasty
as a picnic blanket that’s
been in the garage for
three years. Eww!
The Food
Rohan T.
Food. OMG. I love food
everywhere. The food is an apple.
The bad food is cheese. I can’t
have cheese on my pizza or
I can’t have it on anything.
An apple is sweet and juicy
and red. Cheese makes me throw-
up. and as I throw up I feel
like I have to die and DIE!
I do not like to throw up I
like apples. Apples are shiny as gold
and I can’t stand my favorite
apple and cheese is in the TRASH.
The trash is as stinky as a
snail’s slime that’s as green as an alien.
Aliens are weird and me and
apples and pomegranates with
nice juicy fruit. And sweet as
fresh squeezed apple juice.
Untitled
Wilson Z.
There was some fried chicken he
said he was as big as a
lion on top of the Sears
Tower and he also said he was
as good as steak and some
pop.
