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

[UrsulaMumsnet]

Thursday 8th October is National Poetry Day, so to celebrate we're asking you to tell us your favourite poem.

Children's Laureate Chris Riddell and former Children's Laureate Michael Rosen recently collaborated on a new book for young children. A Great Big Cuddle is an illustrated collection of poetry which celebrates all the best things about childhood. Share a line of poetry, the title, poet, or the whole piece (within reason - try to hold back on the epics!) for a chance to win a limited edition illustrated poem for your DC's bedroom, signed by Michael Rosen and Chris Riddell plus a signed copy of the book.

Find out more about Michael Rosen and Chris Riddell

This giveaway is sponsored by Walker

Now We Are Six By A.A. Milne

When I was one,
I had just begun.
When I was two,
I was nearly new....

My 7 year old son absolutely loves it!

She was on the bridge at midnight
Her lips were all a quiver
She gave a cough
Her leg fell off
And floated down the river

Never fails to make me smile and was my first poem that I remember as a child.

A.A. Milne now we are six is a favourite poem in our house. I came across it looking for poems for my son before and we found this one, which my son loves as he's 6 so it was perfect for him.
When I was one,
I had just begun.
When I was two,
I was nearly new.
When I was three,
I was hardly me.
When I was four,
I was not much more.
When I was five,
I was just alive.
But now I am six,
I'm as clever as clever.
So I think I'll be six
now and forever.

One of Larkin's kindest poems with the opening line perfectly summing up a beautiful newborn:

'Born Yesterday'

Tightly-folded bud,
I have wished you something
None of the others would:
Not the usual stuff
About being beautiful,
Or running off a spring
Of innocence and love -
They will all wish you that,
And should it prove possible,
Well, you're a lucky girl.

But if it shouldn't, then
May you be ordinary;
Have, like other women,
An average of talents:
Not ugly, not good-looking,
Nothing uncustomary
To pull you off your balance,
That, unworkable itself,
Stops all the rest from working.
In fact, may you be dull -
If that is what a skilled,
Vigilant, flexible,
Unemphasised, enthralled
Catching of happiness is called.

I know it became very famous after Four Weddings and a Funeral, but W. H. Auden's Funeral Blues has always been very poignant for me

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

London Airport

Last night in London Airport
I saw a wooden bin
labelled UNWANTED LITERATURE
IS TO BE PLACED HEREIN.
So I wrote a poem
and popped it in.

by Christopher Logue

My favourite poem of all time is "Vespers" by A A MILNE, my mum used to recite it to me before bed and now I do the same with my little boy, it's our special time just before he goes to sleep and I hope one day he'll do it with his children.

Vespers:
Little Boy kneels at the foot of the bed,
Droops on the little hands little gold head.
Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.

God bless Mummy. I know that's right.
Wasn't it fun in the bath to-night?
The cold's so cold, and the hot's so hot.
Oh! God bless Daddy - I quite forgot.

If I open my fingers a little bit more,
I can see Nanny's dressing-gown on the door.
It's a beautiful blue, but it hasn't a hood.
Oh! God bless Nanny and make her good.

Mine has a hood, and I lie in bed,
And pull the hood right over my head,
And I shut my eyes, and I curl up small,
And nobody knows that I'm there at all.

Oh! Thank you, God, for a lovely day.
And what was the other I had to say?
I said "Bless Daddy," so what can it be?
Oh! Now I remember it. God bless Me.

Little Boy kneels at the foot of the bed,
Droops on the little hands little gold head.
Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.

I love this poem by Edgar Allan Poe

To My Mother

Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,
The angels, whispering to one another,
Can find, among their burning terms of love,
None so devotional as that of “Mother,”
Therefore by that dear name I long have called you—
You who are more than mother unto me,
And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you
In setting my Virginia's spirit free.
My mother—my own mother, who died early,
Was but the mother of myself; but you
Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,
And thus are dearer than the mother I knew
By that infinity with which my wife
Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.

The Journey by Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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

Warning by Jenny Joseph

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!!

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.

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

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!!!!!

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).

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.....

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. :)

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.