poetry

The Girl Who Shouted No

Sally

There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead
When she was good,
She was very good indeed,
But when she was bad she was horrid.

~~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

She was cute, although
Her favorite word was NO
She shouted it often and loudly
Her mother sat her down
And said, with quite a frown,
“Daughter, you do NOT do me proudly.

“I know this sounds absurd
But could you choose another word
One without such negative implication?
If you can’t do that for me
I’m afraid that you will be
Quite lonely when we leave you for vacation.”

“NO” formed on her lips
As she planted hands on hips
Then she looked to see her mother really meant it
So she took a deep breath in
(And grinned a little grin)
Saying, “I will do my best to prevent it.”

Such an eloquent little girl!
Complete with little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead
She gave up shouting “NO”
And with sweet face quite aglow
She shouted words that were even more horrid

This is my submission for the W3 Challenge this week. Poet of the Week Violet (Congrats, Violet!) gave me the kind of challenge I love — a story poem. However, I did not follow all her guidelines. Here’s what she said:

Tell a story in verse—true or imagined, rooted in memory or invention. Let it unfold in a place you know well or one you’ve only dreamed of.

You can let the voice guiding the poem speak in a dialect—regional, ancestral, invented, or intimate. Let that voice shape the rhythm, grammar, and soul of the piece. Whether it’s Appalachian twang, Mandarin-inflected English, Nigerian Pidgin, or your grandmother’s Russian-accented Hebrew, the dialect is not a flourish—it is the storyteller.

While this use of dialect is optional, it’s highly recommended. Give us a poem that walks and talks in its own shoes.

I DID tell a story. However, I didn’t use a dialect. Trust me, this is good — my original attempt was to write a poem in Pig Latin.

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Published by Sally

17 thoughts on “The Girl Who Shouted No”

  2. Cool poem!! Pig Latin!?! I’m impressed! Ubbi Dubbi was the language we used as My mother was very conversant in Pig Latin (her father had used it to have private conversations with her mother thus she mastered it quickly)…

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    1. The Pig Latin poem didn’t survive. I loved Ubbi Dubbi with my kids! I tried to explain it someone the other day who had never heard of it and he looked at me like I had two heads — which, I suppose, is what it sounded like!

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  5. I like the way you’ve cleverly subverted the sing-song rhyme with a final twist that lands like a slap. The voice, both childlike and sly, mirrors the setting: familiar, domestic, disciplined and yet teetering on chaos. There is dialect, by the way. It’s subtle, not regional but tonal: it’s the diction of storybooks and moral lessons, turned to reveal how rebellion evolves instead of disappearing. I read it as a charming cautionary tale – and then you realise who’s really in control.

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    1. Wow! You see so much in my poetry! Thank you! And here, I was just hoping to make someone smile.

      Your words really do mean a lot to me.

      Reply

  10. Sally, your twist on Longfellow made me grin—especially “She gave up shouting ‘NO’ / And with sweet face quite aglow / She shouted words that were even more horrid.” That reversal is wickedly funny in the best way 😀

    ~David

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