My 8 year old son needs to recite a poem in school.

Not being a poet...I came to the best place to find ANYTHING!!

It needs to be a minimum of 16 line and 65 words.

There was an old man from Nantucket...

Oh, wait....thats a limerick.

And probably inappropriate.

Try my "Ode to SHTF"
[url]http://ar15.com/forums/topic.html?id=75873[/url] [:D]

REMEMBER HE IS 8!!

Two classics from Robert Frost:

STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.


THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Try [url]http://www.wheretodoresearch.com/poets.htm[/url] for a list of a number of poet websites.

If you want a couple suggestions, how about Robert Frost's [i]The Road Not Taken[/i]: [url]http://www.ketzle.com/frost/roadnot.htm[/url] (20 lines) or John Greenleaf Whittier's [i]The Barefoot Boy[/i]: [url]http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/whitti6.html[/url] (first stanza 18 lines)?

Oops! sorry.


"On Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening" is the Best.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow has a bunch of good poems.  Unfortunately most of them are either probably too long for an eight-year-old (e.g., [i]Paul Revere's Ride[/i] or [i]The Village Blacksmith[/i]) or they are barely too short for the assignment, most of his short poems having only 12 to 15 lines (e.g., [i]The Arrow and the Song[/i], [i]Changed[/i], [i]Sundown[/i], [i]Aftermath[/i], [i]The Rainy Day[/i]).  However, [i]O Ship of State[/i] ([url]http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/2012/poems/longf05.html#35[/url]) does meet the criteria, having 22 lines.

---edited to add the words to the poem---
[i]O Ship of State[/i]

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
         Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
         Humanity with all its fears,
         With all the hopes of future years,
         Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
         We know what Master laid thy keel,
         What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
         Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
         What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
         In what a forge and what a heat
         Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
         Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
         'Tis of the wave and not the rock;
         'Tis but the flapping of the sail,
         And not a rent made by the gale!
         In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
         In spite of false lights on the shore,
         Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
         Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee.
         Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
         Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
         Are all with thee, -are all with thee!

Here's sonme sites with kid's poems:

[url]http://www.nesbitt.com/poetry/[/url]

[url]http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/keary/tulips.html[/url]

LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE by James Whitcomb Riley

[i]To all the little children: -- The happy ones; and sad ones;
The sober and the silent ones; the boisterous and glad ones;
The good ones -- Yes, the good ones, too; and all the lovely bad ones.[/i]

Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay,
An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away,
An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth, an' sweep,
An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep;
An' all us other childern, when the supper-things is done,
We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest fun
A-list'nin' to the witch-tales 'at Annie tells about,
An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!

Wunst they wuz a little boy wouldn't say his prayers, --
An' when he went to bed at night, away up-stairs,
His Mammy heerd him holler, an' his Daddy heerd him bawl,
An' when they turn't the kivvers down, he wuzn't there at all!
An' they seeked him in the rafter-room, an' cubby-hole, an' press,
An' seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an' ever'-wheres, I guess;
But all they ever found wuz thist his pants an' roundabout: --
An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!

An' one time a little girl 'ud allus laugh an' grin,
An' make fun of ever' one, an' all her blood-an'-kin;
An' wunst, when they was "company," an' ole folks wuz there,
She mocked 'em an' shocked 'em, an' said she didn't care!
An' thist as she kicked her heels, an' turn't to run an' hide,
They wuz two great big Black Things a-standin' by her side,
An' they snatched her through the ceilin' 'fore she knowed what she's about!
An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!

An' little Orphant Annie says, when the blaze is blue,
An' the lamp-wick sputters, an' the wind goes woo-oo!
An' you hear the crickets quit, an' the moon is gray,
An' the lightnin'-bugs in dew is all squenched away, --
You better mind yer parunts, an' yer teachurs fond an' dear,
An' churish them 'at loves you, an' dry the orphant's tear,
An' he'p the pore an' needy ones 'at clusters all about,
Er the Gobble-uns 'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!

[Note: Sorry, I know it's unlikely anyone wants to hear someone recite this particular poem, but it was one of my Mother's favorite for reading to me, almost half a century ago]

I am impressed!!

As usual the AR team strikes home!!

How about something by Walt Whitman?

[b]Wood Odors[/b]

Morning after a night-rain
The fresh-cool summer-scent
Odors of pine and oak
The shade.

Wandering the negligent paths
-the soothing silence,
The stillness and the veiled
The myriad living columns of the temple
The holy Sabbath morning
Incense and songs of birds
in deep recesses
But most the delicate
smells fitting the soul
The sky aloft, seen through
the tree-tops
All the young growth &
green maturity of May
White laurel-blossoms within reach
wood-pinks below-overhead stately tulip-
trees with yellow cup-shaped
flowers.

The meow
meo-o-ow of the cat-bird,
cluck of robin,gurgle
of thrush delicious

Over and under these, in the
silence,delicate wood-odors
Birds flitting through the trees
Tangles of old grape-vines.

THE STORY OF SCHROEDINGER'S CAT (AN EPIC POEM)

Schroedinger, Erwin! Professor of physics!
Wrote daring equations! Confounded his critics!
(Not bad, eh? Don't worry. This part of the verse
Starts off pretty good, but it gets a lot worse.)
Win saw that the theory that Newton'd invented
By Einstein's discov'ries had been badly dented.
What now? wailed his colleagues. Said Erwin, "Don't panic,
No grease monkey I, but a quantum mechanic.
Consider electrons. Now, these teeny articles
Are sometimes like waves, and then sometimes like particles.
If that's not confusing, the nuclear dance
Of electrons and suchlike is governed by chance!
No sweat, though--my theory permits us to judge
Where some of 'em is and the rest of 'em was."
Not everyone bought this. It threatened to wreck
The comforting linkage of cause and effect.
E'en Einstein had doubts, and so Schroedinger tried
To tell him what quantum mechanics implied.
Said Win to Al, "Brother, suppose we've a cat,
And inside a tube we have put that cat at--
Along with a solitaire deck and some Fritos,
A bottle of Night Train, a couple mosquitoes
(Or something else rhyming) and, oh, if you got 'em,
One vial prussic acid, one decaying ottom
Or atom--whatever--but when it emits,
A trigger device blasts the vial into bits
Which snuffs our poor kitty. The odds of this crime
Are 50 to 50 per hour each time.
The cylinder's sealed. The hour's passed away. Is
Our pussy still purring--or pushing up daisies?
Now, you'd say the cat either lives or it don't
But quantum mechanics is stubborn and won't.
Statistically speaking, the cat (goes the joke),
Is half a cat breathing and half a cat croaked.
To some this may seem a ridiculous split,
But quantum mechanics must answer, "Tough @#&!
We may not know much, but one thing's fo' sho':
There's things in the cosmos that we cannot know.
Shine light on electrons--you'll cause them to swerve.
The act of observing disturbs the observed--
Which ruins your test. But then if there's no testing
To see if a particle's moving or resting
Why try to conjecture? Pure useless endeavor!
We know probability--certainty, never.'
The effect of this notion? I very much fear
'Twill make doubtful all things that were formerly clear.
Till soon the cat doctors will say in reports,
"We've just flipped a coin and we've learned he's a corpse."'
So saith Herr Erwin. Quoth Albert, "You're nuts.
God doesn't play dice with the universe, putz.
I'll prove it!" he said, and the Lord knows he tried--
In vain--until fin'ly he more or less died.
Win spoke at the funeral: "Listen, dear friends,
Sweet Al was my buddy. I must make amends.
Though he doubted my theory, I'll say of this saint:
Ten-to-one he's in heaven--but five bucks says he ain't."

--CECIL ADAMS
[url]http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_122.html[/url]

I suggest something short...

[b]Believe in Yourself[/b]

Believe in yourself-
in the power you have
to control your own life, day by day.
Believe in the strength
that you have deep inside,
and your faith will help
show you the way.
Believe in tomorrow
and what it will bring-
let a hopeful heart carry you through.
For things will work out
if you trust and believe
there's no limit
to what you can do.

Emily Matthews

EDIT : Ops not long enough! Sorry LOL

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Handguns should be banned,
Assault weapons too.

[b]In Flanders Fields[/b] by John McCrae


In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.


We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.


Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

That's awesome.  I've printed it and am going to tack it onto my son's mirror in his room.

He's eight years old and struggling with following directions in class.  I know it's because he can't maintain his focus, and I tell him everyday to do his best to listen and follow instructions.  

I know when he's just saying what I want to hear, and when he's being honest, and it breaks my heart when he just looks down and sincerely says he tries, but that he just doesn't understand why he can't finish his work or understand a math concept.

When he has that defeated look on his face I tell him to believe in himself because I know that he can do whatever he sets his mind to if he has faith in his abilities.

Thanks for the extra incentive.

[b]Ode to a Bushmaster[/b]

Adrift in the slushy grayness of a winter day,
A young man's fancy turns to thoughts of ordnance:
Black child of Stoner, thou callest me!
Pea shooter, mouse gun, liberty stick,
A thing of wonder and of plastic,
Aluminum and steel and nylon.
Art thou sprung from Vulcan's glowing forge
Or the toy shops of Mattel?
I wonder.
Come to me, O purple-handled grayness,
Extend mine arm and give my cheek cold comfort;
Let thy tiny window all the world reveal
Upon a post top, winged in danger.
Fire breather, pill spinner, lead spitter,
Thy little mouth barks from a spiral throat
Chrome splendored and
Fed in a sludgy blackness
From a belly stuffed with teeth.
Did Tell or Boone or York e'er dream
Of such a mistress?
Let steady hands repair thee
To the fields of ringing stillness,
To the test of focused eye and quiet heart.
Serve me true, O box-fed servant
And may lesser souls be damned.

yuu oe mme aaa neewww kybord.  spppt cokeee on mineeeit sticckss nw

LMAO!!