Alligator Pie — A Canadian Classic
No, this post is not about recipes. You’ll not find “Alligator Pie” in any Canadian cookbook, that’s for sure, but you will find scores of Canadian kids familiar with the poem and book of the same title. Alligator Pie written by Dennis Lee in 1974 (original edition illustrated by Frank Newfeld) is a Canadian poetry classic. Children just love this zany poem’s rhymes.
Alligator pie, alligator pie,
If I don’t get some I think I’m gonna die.
Give away the green grass, give away the sky,
But don’t give away my alligator pie.
Many a child, including my own, has gone to a Lee reading to shout out with glee the end word rhymes to this famous poem. Indeed, Mr. Lee encourages it. “I never realized how soon a child can take part in “doing poems.” A two year old will join in, if you pause at the rhyme-word and let him complete it. Usually it will be the familiar rhyme, but if you’re making up new verses you’ll be surprised what he thinks of. Try starting a verse “Alligator juice … ”
Lee’s intent was to create a book of rhymes for children that departed from the old English nursery rhymes he grew up with. He wanted rhymes for children in the context they lived in as Canadians. But not without being playful, of course! My children love Lee’s wordplay with Canadian place names — for instance, this one on our home town.
Someday I’ll go to Winnipeg
To win a peg-leg pig.
But will a peg-leg winner win
The piglet’s ill got wig?
Is there poetry about your town or the place you live? Is there a way to make word play with its name that will make your kids laugh out loud and think about where they live in a new and lively word-conscious way? Do tell!
January 9th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
My son Nick and I loved this book when we found it at the library thirty years ago–I can still chant Alligator Pie and I’ll bet he can too…
January 12th, 2009 at 2:08 am
Wow, I must look out for this book. Thank you.
January 15th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Sally -
Great post! I remember this book from when I was in elementary school.
I tried to rack my brains to see if I could remember any poems about Vancouver but I couldn’t.
However, every year the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival is celebrated for one month beginning in late March. One of the main events is a Haiku competition. The website says that they have received 1450 haiku for the 2009 event. Click here to read some of last year’s entries. If you are enjoying a snowy, cold day this is the site to visit. The haiku and the photos on the site are beautiful. Oh how I long for Spring to arrive!
April 17th, 2009 at 12:07 am
[...] How wonderful then for the fine model of a book put out by well known Canadian poet Dennis Lee (of Alligator Pie fame) called SoCool (illus. Maryann Kovalski.) The book covers the range of adolescent [...]
May 14th, 2010 at 1:01 am
[...] activities, or animals, or sights particular to the locale. There’s definitely a touch of Dennis Lee in these poems that’s detectable in such poems that play on Canadian place names like in [...]
October 29th, 2010 at 1:02 am
[...] The rhymes and word-play with Canadian place names in Vanilla Gorilla reminded me very much of Dennis Lee. The tongue twisting “Mackerel Mockery Pickerel Pike” for example, mentions [...]