Gravity's got fast hands -- not like yours. When your child dunks under, his feet flailing, it takes a second to realize he's not practicing putting his face in the water, he's not clowning. When he ...

As the author of books in verse for kids and teens, I often visit schools and talk about poetry. When I ask who their favorite poets are, “Shel Silverstein” is a regular answer. I’ve identified his ...

With plenty of knock-knock jokes, ""tongue tanglers,"" ""nifty Tom Swifties"" (a 1920s joke) plus poems by the likes of Jack Prelutsky and Ogden Nash, The Big Golden Book of Laughs: A Treasury of ...

The very first thing I ever read by David Kirby was “I figure poetry is a way of beating the odds.” It’s the first sentence to his 1989 book, Writing Poetry, and it made me laugh out loud. Looking ...

Dear reader: Please do not cancel your subscriptions to this fine newspaper, or otherwise punish it. Its editors have not ordered me to rewrite corny jokes into poetry; I do it of my own volition. It ...