Pigs, Peanut Butter, and Poetry: Perfect!

Tuesday is a nutty day... and we're as happy as pigs in mud about it!  Today, Poetry Paraders, we're celebrating National Pig Day. A Texas art teacher created this peculiar porky holiday in 1972, hoping to give the clever, intelligent creatures the widespread respect they deserve.  Today is also National Peanut Butter Lover's Day, a day that celebrates America's favorite sandwich spread. Smooth or crunchy or super extra-chunky, peanut butter is popular on sandwiches, on crackers, on celery, mixed in cookie recipes, and mixed in snacks.  Pigs.  Peanut Butter.  Poetry.  Hmmm... Poetry on Parade likes the sound of this day.  It's full of alliteration! 

If Only 

If I could be a grunting pig,

I would, and with my snout I'd dig

Deep down into the muddy ground

And deeper still until I found

A big potato, fat and sweet,

And then I'd eat and eat and eat

And when I'd eaten every bit

I'd fall asleep and dream of it:

That big potato, fat and round,

Deep down beneath the muddy ground.

Oh, with my snout I'd dig and dig...

If only I could be a pig.

--Richard Edwards

It's pretty apparent that if only we were pigs, we would be... sloppy eaters.  Bearing this in mind, today's peanut butter poem is from a book that offers good advice in its title: Never Take a Pig to Lunch and Other Poems about the Fun of Eating.  Peanut Butter and Jelly is a simple sandwich that's fun to eat, and Peanut Butter and Jelly is a simple poem that's fun to recite with your friends: 

First you take the dough and knead it, knead it.

Peanut butter, peanut butter, jelly, jelly.

Pop it in the oven and bake it, bake it.

Peanut butter, peanut butter, jelly, jelly.

Then you take a knife and slice it, slice it.

Peanut butter, peanut butter, jelly, jelly.

Then you take the peanuts and crack them, crack them.

Peanut butter, peanut butter, jelly, jelly.

Put them on the floor and mash them, mash them.

Peanut butter, peanut butter, jelly, jelly.

Then you take a knife and spread it, spread it.

Peanut butter, peanut butter, jelly, jelly.

Next you take some grapes and squash them, squash them.

Peanut butter, peanut butter, jelly, jelly.

Glop it on the bread and smear it, smear it.

Peanut butter, peanut butter, jelly jelly.

Then you take the sandwich and eat it, eat it.

Peanut butter, peanut butter, jelly, jelly.

Pigs, peanut butter, and poetry: an unlikely combination.  Our next poem, from Snuffles and Snouts, explains why we rarely encounter swine poets:

Why Pigs Cannot Write Poems

Pigs cannot write poems because

Nothing rhymes with oink.  If you

Think you can find a rhyme, I'll pause,

But if I wait until you do,

I'll have forgotten why it was

Pigs cannot write poems because.

--John Ciardi 


It's true: oink presents a rhyming challenge.  But in today's final poem, A Piglet, Jack Prelutsky finds a way to work an oink into a short little poem:

I'm a piglet, pink and stout.

If I'm cold, I sneeze and sniff.

If I have to blow my snout,

I take out my oinkerchief. 





Will we ever find a better day to celebrate pigs, peanut butter and poetry?  When pigs fly!  We'll close today's parade with an old favorite guaranteed to please-- whether we like our poems smooth or crunchy or super extra-chunky:

A peanut sat on a railroad track,
His heart was all a-flutter.

The five-fifteen came rushing by--

Toot toot!   Peanut butter!