Inspired by “Sick”

I don’t remember what year it was when I heard Shel Silverstein speak at the University of Miami in Coral Gables. What I recall from the event is something he said—or maybe in the revisionist view of my past—something I think he said about teaching poetry to students. Encourage your students not to be slaves to rhyme. It’s a hard sell when he is such a master and was popular beyond all others in my first and second grade classrooms. We do love rhyme.

Today a poem of his is running through my head, a parody of a poem, to be exact. I have had middle school students, on the heels of successfully playing with the copy-change methods from Dunning and Stafford’s Getting the Knack,

embrace the opportunity to play with the poems we’d share in class. Frost’s “Stopping by Woods…“, inspired such classics as, “Whose cheeseburger is this? I think I know…” or lines from William Carlos Williams’ “This Is Just to Say” morphed into “I’m sorry I stole your bike from the garage…”

I have Shel’s “Sick” on my mind this morning. My sister-in-law gave me my copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends where “Sick” lives happily surrounded by other Silverstein gems. On the inside front cover her son, now a 50-year-old, had written a note in pencil letting me know that he was giving me this book because it’s the BEST BOOK EVER MADE, including page number of his favorite poem, “Sick.” He had struggled to unlock reading, but Shel helped him find the key.

Sick

I cannot go to school today,”
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
“I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I’m going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I’ve counted sixteen chicken pox
And there’s one more—that’s seventeen,
And don’t you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut—my eyes are blue—
It might be instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I’m sure that my left leg is broke—
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button’s caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle’s sprained,
My ‘pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb.
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow’s bent, my spine ain’t straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is—what?
What’s that? What’s that you say?
You say today is. . .Saturday?
G’bye, I’m going out to play!”

From Shel Silverstein: Poems and Drawings; originally appeared in Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. Copyright © 2003

In my head I am hearing, “I cannot write a post today/all my ideas have gone away./my pen lacks ink/my thoughts, they stink/I can’t imagine what to say./ What if I never find my words/ is that a thought beyond absurd?/ Around me people buzz and prate/ they seem to think their words are great./They do say much I wish I could/but my stories really aren’t that good!/I know I have no writer’s skill/to face the page takes more than will./ I’ve told some tales that make me smile/but not today, I’ve lost my style./Wait, you urge, just give it time/those challenging days are not a crime./Who knows if later on today/you’ll not be grabbed by what to say?/ You’ve started now, you’re on a roll/ You’ll end this now; you’ve reached your goal!

Post 29 of 31! (Thanks, Shel🙏)