Celebrate National Poetry Day by sharing your favourite poems with us for a chance to win a signed copy of A Great Big Cuddle plus a limited edition signed print for your DC's bedroom wall

My favourite poem is The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear. I had to learn this to recite in front of the school when I was 6. I can still remember every word and even standing in front of the school.

Johnathan Joe has a mouth like an O
and a wheelbarrow full of surpises
If you wanted a bat
or something like that
He's got it what ever the size is.....

This poem is in Now We Are Six by A A Milne and my brother and I can still recite it now 50+ years on from when my Mum used to read it to us when we were children. I loved it then because it was funny and love it now because it brings back such lovely memories and makes me giggle to this day.

Footprints in the sand

A baby sardine
Saw her first submarine
She was scared and looked through the peephole.
Come, come, come said the sardine's mum.
It's only a tin full of people.

Spike Milligan

stop all the clocks by WH Auden. so moving

Wow, reading some of this brings back memories! I used to have a book of poems and short stories when I was younger and I have always remembered a poem called the story of little suck a thumb (it frightened the life out of me and that's why I think I remember it!)

I've just googled and here's the first verse...

One day, Mamma said, "Conrad dear,
I must go out and leave you here.
But mind now, Conrad, what I say,
Don't suck your thumb while I'm away.
The great tall tailor always comes
To little boys that suck their thumbs.
And ere they dream what he's about
He takes his great sharp scissors
And cuts their thumbs clean off, - and then
You know, they never grow again."

I also love the Larkin poem mentioned above and "wishes" by Rose Fyleman, that I had to memorise for a drama exam!

The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson.

"Then Wenceslas sat the poor man down,
poured Winter's Wine,
and carved him a sumptuous slice
of the Christmas Pie …
as prayers hope You would, and I."
Wenceslas: A Christmas Poem by Carol
Ann Duffy.

Baby Einstein's Mimi's Toes, which is a bath book. The latter evokes the sweetest memories of my baby giggling in his bath. DH and I can still recite it word by word.

My all-time favourites are not in English.

I think the one I find most memorable is 'From a Railway Carriage' by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle,
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And there is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart run away in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone for ever!

Its written to be read out loud so you can hear the rhythm - it makes you want to read faster and faster like a clackety-clack steam engine (it always reminds me of the Grosmont to Pickering line). Fab poem.

I've always had a soft spot for Pied Beauty by Hopkins, but I think a lot of that is to do with studying it at school. :)

Not last night but the night before
Three Tom cats came knocking at my door
One had a fiddle,one had a drum and the other had a pancake stuck to his bum

Taught to me by my great aunts and to my mothers mortification recited by me to the posh school full of ambassadors kids.....

Any poem by Steve Turner really, because I remember them so well as a child. They are thought provoking and funny, and easy to read, and just really made me see, for the first time, that poetry was something I could enjoy, and understand.
If I had to single one out, I would claim "I am on the kids' side in the war against adults" because it made me laugh out loud and made me see my own feelings written down. And because I read it so often that it feels imprinted in me.
I am not reproducing the poem here in case it is still under copyright. (I suspect poets often suffer from having their work reproduced publicly without permission).

Dentist and the Crocodile by Roald Dahl :D

The crocodile, with cunning smile, sat in the dentist's chair.

He said, "Right here and everywhere my teeth require repair."

The dentist's face was turning white. He quivered, quaked and shook.

He muttered, "I suppose I'm going to have to take a look.""I want you," Crocodile declared, "to do the back ones first.

The molars at the very back are easily the worst."

He opened wide his massive jaws. It was a fearsome sight––

At least three hundred pointed teeth, all sharp and shining white.

The dentist kept himself well clear. He stood two yards away.

He chose the longest probe he had to search out the decay.

"I said to do the back ones first!" the Crocodile called out.

"You're much too far away, dear sir, to see what you're about.

To do the back ones properly you've got to put your head

Deep down inside my great big mouth," the grinning Crocky said.

The poor old dentist wrung his hands and, weeping in despair,

He cried, "No no! I see them all extremely well from here!"

Just then, in burst a lady, in her hands a golden chain.

She cried, "Oh Croc, you naughty boy, you're playing tricks again!"

"Watch out!" the dentist shrieked and started climbing up the wall.

"He's after me! He's after you! He's going to eat us all!"

"Don't be a twit," the lady said, and flashed a gorgeous smile.

"He's harmless. He's my little pet, my lovely crocodile."

GOTTA LOVE ROALD DAHL!!!!!

Halfway Down

Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair
Where I sit.
There isn't any
Other stair
Quite like
It.
I'm not at the bottom,
I'm not at the top;
So this is the stair
Where
I always
Stop.

Halfway up the stairs
Isn't up,
And it isn't down.
It isn't in the nursery,
It isn't in the town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head;
"It isn't really
Anywhere!
It's somewhere else
Instead!"

A.A Milne

My favourite will always be Robert Frost's Nothing Gold Can Stay. This largely stems from an obsession with the book The Outsiders by SE Hinton when I was a young teen. Stay gold Ponyboy! sniff. It is a beautiful poem in its own right though.

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.

My 8 year old daughters favourite!

Hen’s Lament by Sheila Blackhall
It’s nae delight tae be a hen,
Wi’ clooks an claws an caimb.
Reestin wi the rottans
In a hen-hoose for a hame.
Nae suner div I sattle doon,
My clutch o’ bairns tae hatch;
The fairm-wife comes — a scraunin’ pest —
She cowps me aff ma cosy nest
A tarry-fingered vratch.
Jist lately, though, she’s changed her tune —
Ma platie’s piled wi corn,
“Sup up, ma bonnie quine,” says she,
“We’re haein broth the morn!”

I always loved anything by Spike Milligan especially this one!
On the Ning Nang Nong
Where the Cows go Bong!
and the monkeys all say BOO!
There's a Nong Nang Ning
Where the trees go Ping!
And the tea pots jibber jabber joo.
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the mice go Clang
And you just can't catch 'em when they do!
So its Ning Nang Nong
Cows go Bong!
Nong Nang Ning
Trees go ping
Nong Ning Nang
The mice go Clang
What a noisy place to belong
is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!

Warning by Jenny Joseph

I love this poem for the images in my head and the fun, natural, rhythm that flows from the words. For me, it's everything a poem should be and is a great place to start that spark of interest in someone new to poetry;
From A Railway Carriage
Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.
Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And here is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart runaway in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill, and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone forever!

by Robert Louis Stevenson

A poem by Ogden Nash, which is the first poem I learned to recite as a young child. I can still remember where I was when I first heard it.

I eat my peas with honey
I’ve done it all my life
It makes the peas taste funny
But it keeps them on the knife
Ogden Nash

As an expat living in the UK I get nostalgic for "home" sometimes. Dorothea Mackellar's My Country expresses my emotions better that I could ever do.

The Highwayman - By Alfred Noyes

PART ONE
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.

The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,

And the highwayman came riding?
Riding?riding?
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

He?d a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,

A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin.
They fitted with never a wrinkle. His boots were up to the thigh.

And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

And so the poem goes on.........

Always loved this poem as it reminds me of my younger days when my Gran used to read it to me. A very atmospheric tragic love story.........great for Halloween!

He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven

HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

A Good Boy by Robert Louis Stevenson - what a perfect way to live life!

Maya Angelou - Still I Rise.
It sounds fantastic when she reads it and I hear her voice when I read it.
Such an inspirational woman with a true zest for life.

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.