A kid at my sons' school brought out the mama bear in me...

My sons' school has a buddy reader program. In it, they match the kindergarten and 1st graders with 3rd and 4th graders and they all practice their reading skills. The other day, they had buddy reader recognition day. All the 1st graders wrote a poem for their buddy readers. Joey wrote his buddy reader a poem about conch shells. His buddy reader gave Joey a nice card saying he would miss him over the summer. But, then the little twit barely glanced at Joey's poem and said to him, "My dad will just throw it away because its trash." When Joey told me about this, he just started sobbing. My poor boy's feelings were crushed. I just wanted to throttle that kid. I KNOW my kids aren't perfect but I also know they would never thoughtlessly hurt someone that way. I tried to explain to Joey that maybe his buddy reader was worried his dad wouldn't understand how important it was and would throw it away and maybe he picked a bad way of explaining it. I also told him I would love to read his poem and would help him type it out so he could decorate the page and give a copy to both sets of grandparents. I also reassured him that I was sure it was a good poem because I knew he worked hard on it.

Let me tell you, I was blown away when I read it. I thought it was a good poem and not just a good poem for a 7 yr old...a damn good poem in general. This is the poem Joey gave his buddy reader...

The Conch Shell
Very hard and thin
with brown and white stripes all over
Big and small points
like stairs up a mountain
Big hole at the end
and a big point at the top

And these are the other poems he decided to write after I told him how good the first one was and how impressed I was with his work...

Nature
Bees buzzing all around
Big trees sitting still
Big grass blades weaving in the wind
Tree seedlings next to big trees

The City
Huge buildings
Busy traffic
Sirens wailing all day
Fire trucks speeding
Trucks roaring down the road
Hammers banging
and drills spinning
People living

The North Pole
Polar bears stomping
through the snow
Ice cracking
Freezing cold snow
Reindeer stomping
through the snow
Snowflakes falling
Silence everywhere

The South Pole
Penguins singing
Orcas splashing
Snow so thick and deep
Seals swimming
Penguins being born
Water icy cold
Penguins playing
Orcas fishing
Snow so thick and deep

Silliness
Baseballs with sirens
Bats without handles
How can we ever play
Scissors singing
Airplanes eating
What will we do about that
Fire trucks swimming
Tanks playing game boys
How can we handle that
Bionicles playing baseball
Dogs doing construction on the Empire State Building
Silliness rules everywhere

So y'all tell me what you think of his poetry.