Scrambled

  — Bruce Lansky

Copyright © 2003. All Rights Reserved. From My Dog Ate My Homework. Running Press. Reprinted by permission of the author.

About this Poem

This is one of the first poems I wrote, or should I say, rewrote. I had seen a poem written by “Anonymous” about a guy who was “walking on air” after being kissed by a girl with whom he was “smitten.” I thought the idea was great but the poem’s wording was “not quite right,” so I reworked it until it seemed “just right” to me. And when I tested my new poem on a panel of 1,000 students, it turned out to be one of the highest scoring poems I had ever tested—a huge improvement over the original poem. Which all goes to show you that in a poem, every single word needs to be “just right.” BTW, girls: when you read this poem, feel free to substitute “he” for “she” in the last line.

From My Dog Ate My Homework

My Dog Ate My Homework is the first collection of Bruce Lansky’s own poetry. This book helped make Lansky’s reputation as a consistently entertaining poet with a unique voice and style. His poems are about someone named “I” or “me” who so resembles the readers, their siblings, friends, parents, pets, and teachers – they think Lansky is writing about them.

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About the Author

Bruce Lansky was first called “the King of Giggle Poetry” by the students of a school in North Miami Beach, Florida whose teacher “kidnapped” Lansky and forced him to perform at her school at needle point. The title refers to Lansky’s third poetry book: A Bad Case of the Giggles. Altogether he has written or edited 20 humorous poetry and song books which have sold about 4 million copies. He visits schools, because he loves hanging out with kids (unfortunately, his grandchildren live in Sweden, so he only sees them once a year).