# Writing > Personal Poetry >  My "To Kill a Mockingbird" poem---Please Read!

## Adolescent09

The following poem is one I wrote in half an hour. It is a piece based on the theatrical version of Harper Lee's globally loved and renowned book, _To Kill a Mockingbird_; I am avidly practicing various styles in this form of writing and I hope its meaning comes out clear and coherent. (This poem only contains the innocent lives of the three children [you should all know who they are..] and not the serious trial) Thank you all in advance for reading! Hope you enjoy  :Smile: 

Three kids tumbling an, 
an old tire of withering rubber,
inviting anyone to take the precarious challenge, 
of rolling, fumbling, splashing and bumbling! 
on a whirlwind of adventure! 
Look in that there oak tree! 
Obtrusive hole in the bark! 
A nifty nook for hiding things! 
in soily places that are completely dark! 

Here's some yarn, here's some rope! 
twirl it around a bit, tie it up, 
makes a perfectly good loop-swing! 
up in the tree we work away!
tap! tap! tap! bang! bang! bang!
It will be done soon some day! 

A week is past! 
The tree house is up, 
but buddy boy Jem won't come down! 
until daddy comes to play! 

Enough of that; he won't come, 
there is more on his mind than fun and games,
he knows the truth
and will do what is right
to free a client from justice,

but lets nettle ole' nitty neighbor, 
for all we know he may be a knight walking around with a saber! 
he's in his house all the time, 
we think of ghosts when we're in his yard,
we run when the eerie sounds emanate and squeek, 
although we always come back to take a peek! 
we see his shadow! 
He makes us Jump!
We thought he said something! 
Did he say Boo!? Boo to scare us?
He said Boo! 
Let's call him Boo!

Buddy girl is tough 
she's always rough, 
always caught up in a scruff
with that broke farmer man's boy 
"why! he ain't got enough money to feed himself" 
says that shrewd Jem boy, 
"Le's invite him over n' stop harrassin' 
'im! Y'know this depression thing
has hit 'im hardest!"

S and D and Jem 
a vivacious and lovely three
imprinted in our minds like fond memories, 
of good and joyful times 
of peace and careless ecstacy 
of a past that was so much better than now
games and cajoles and fun,
have now turned to video gaming screens 
where innocuous and youthful mirth is gone.

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## Adolescent09

any comment?

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## blp

This is really great, but it doesn't need the rhymes. The language is really punchy and exciting except when it's being forced into these rhymes. Early on, 'fumbling' and 'bumbling' particularly irritates me. I'm not saying never rhyme, but if you're going to do it, either play up the dumbness of it or do it very carefully so it seems to fall out naturally (easier said than done!)

Other than that, watch those exclamation marks. Did you know that some people only consider an exclamation mark to be grammatically correct if it's used in an actual exclamation, something like Oh god! or Damn! or Ouch! I'm not that strict about it, but they are being used ungrammatically here - just because you've come to the end of a line doesn't mean it's the end of the sentence. Again, breaking sentences with bits of punctuation - wrongly - like this could be interesting, but even if that's what you're doing, I think you're overdoing it. It looks like you're doing it to convey excitement, but the excitement is already there in the language.

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## Adolescent09

Great post, thanks blp for the input. I can see your point  :Smile:

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