Birds, Beasts and Fishes

Carter, Anne
Cartwright, Reg
Poetry
Macmillion Publishing, 1991
2nd and up

ON A CAT AGEING
He blinks upon the hearth rug
And yawns in deep content,
Accepting all the comforts
That Providence has sent.

Louder he purrs, and louder
In one glad hymn of praise,
For all the night's adventures,
For quiet, restful days.

Life will go one for ever,
With all that cat can wish;
Warmth, and the glad procession
Of fish, and milk and fish.

Only-the thought disturbs him-
He's noticed once ot twice,
The times are somehow bredding
A nimbler race of mice.
-Alexander Gray

I chose this poem because I love animals. This book was just full of great animal poems, so it was hard to choose just one. I really liked this poem because you could really sense the attitude of the cat. A cat is a simple, familiar animal so talking about poetry and using a cat I thought would be great for younger kids. "Life will go on forever, with all that cat can wish, warmth and the glad procession of fish and milk and fish" was my favorite stanza from the poem. Cats often have this attitude that they own the area where they are at and they lay around without a care in the world. Sometimes I wonder what cats are thinking while they lay there and purr and I guess it would be fish and milk just like the poem says! The first part of the poem talks about how the cat yawns accepting all the comforts and it makes me laugh because i feel like I can really apply this poem to my own cat. I thought that this poem did such a great job capturing the description of a cat and a cats feelings and attitudes towards life. I thought that this poem had a few elements of poetry including rhythm, rhyme, and images. You can really picture this cat and what he is doing and thinking. The poem really flows together each part being about equal and I think that this gives it rhythm. The author uses rhyme throughout the poem as well. For example: "And yawns in deep content, accepting all the comforts, that providence has sent."

I would use this poem, and the whole book in my classroom. You could use it when learning about poetry and you could even do a lesson on animals. Every page has a poem about a different animal so you could have the kids read some of these poems and then make up their very own poem about one of their favorite animals!

http://www.poetry4kids.com/index.php