Mockingbird, Chickadee, and Egret

Birds seem to figure in somewhere in all my books,
either in the text or the paintings or both.
Always wonderful to draw or paint, and
bird names are so much fun
to play around with in poems.
This is a spread from my book Tippintown : A Guided Tour
concerning The Tippinfeather Choir,
Tippintown's premier avian A capella ensemble.
(Well, not completely A capella, because the mockingbird
plays the lyre. This is a little joke about how
a mockingbird plays the liar, when it imitates other birds.
Maybe liar is a bit strong. Plagiarist? Or maybe the mockingbird
is just sampling sound. In Pasadena we had a local mockingbird
that would imitate a car alarm.)
And the poor loon. He can't seem to remember
the words to the song even with sheet music.







This is a Poem called The Egret, from Soup for Breakfast.
It was inspired by the doodle and the little five line poem,
above, in a sketchbook.
Sparrows and swallows, cuckoos and cockatoos,
and whippoorwills on windowsills. I'll continue to
bring birds into my writing and art,
even if they get sick of me.

A Halloween Poem

Leprechauns

Every Halloween
it's always the same routine –
a couple local leprechauns
causing a noisy scene.
All this raucous ruckus
over a rotten nectarine.
Hector wants to squash it,
but Pierre is being mean.
Neither one is wearing any green.

© Calef Brown 2006

Soup and Grandpa's Mustache

My new book Soup for Breakfast is available now,
a couple weeks ahead of the official publication date.
This is one of my favorite poems in the book.
It concerns my nasally hirsute grandfather.

Eschew the Stew

Everyone,
and I mean everyone,
tried to tell Sue
to eschew the stew
at Chez Snafu.
So what does she do?
She orders it anyhow.
It doesn't seem as funny now.

A Swarm of Snails

I was in Providence last weekend, reading
and signing books at the
Rhode Island Festival
of Children's Books and Authors,
which was wonderful, lots of fun!
When I sign copies of Polkabats and Octopus Slacks
I usually draw a snail along with my signature –
a nod to the poem Snails, in the book.
As I was dooding the aforementioned creatures,
I reflected on how satisfying and easy they are to draw.
When i returned home, I pulled out a jar of india ink
and some brushes, and drew a swarm of 41 snails.
Catsnails, Dogsnails, even a Calaverasnail.
Halloween is coming, after all.