Two Poems for Jack: A Poetry Video

A couple of years ago, I thought I’d mess around trying to make videos on my computer with pictures that I had for our high school class website. I enjoyed learning how to add music and transitions and words. Last year, I decided to take two of the poems that I had written about my daughter’s yellow Lab Jack and make a video of that rascally canine called Two Poems for Jack.

Dirty Dog!, the first poem on the video, is a triolet. I was inspired to write the poem because of an incident my son-in-law had when he took Jack to a park where dogs are allowed to run around unleashed. Well, Jack got into some muddy water and refused to come out. My son-in-law had quite an ordeal trying to get Jack to dry land. I thought a triolet was the perfect form for writing about that tale—in my son-in-law’s voice.

The triolet is a poem with eight lines in which the first two lines are repeated as the last two lines. The first line is also the fourth line.

DIRTY DOG
(A Poem for Jerry)

Dirty, dirty, dirty dog!
Didn’t heed your master—NO!
Thought you’d run into the bog.
Dirty, dirty, dirty dog!
(I rant in my mad monologue.)
You frolicked where you shouldn’t go.
Dirty, dirty, dirty dog!
Didn’t heed your master—NO!

The second poem on the video is Dog, a mask poem written from Jack’s point of view.

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At Wild Rose Reader, I have I have Poetry for Children at Its Best--the 2009 NCTE Notable Poetry Books. I've included links to reviews of all 20 titles.

Tricia has the Poetry Friday Roundup at The Miss Rumphius Effect.