A Rasher of Poems for Snarkey Children
by Russell Bittner

Habeas Corpus

Habeas Corpus
he's our man;
If we can't have him
nobody can

Fourteen Letter Words

Little Miss Muffett

BITTNER: Little Miss Muffet and Nolens Volens

Two mischievous poems turn childhood defiance into verbal play. Little Miss Muffet answers the world with wit and suspicion, while Nolens Volens stages bedtime as a grand philosophical rebellion destined to collapse beneath bears, pillows and sleep. Russell Bittner combines nursery-rhyme rhythms, wordplay and comic argument to create poems that are clever enough for adults and unruly enough for children.

Little Miss Muffet — Russell Bittner
A familiar nursery-rhyme figure is recast as sharp-tongued, suspicious and entirely capable of defending herself. Bittner plays gleefully with rhyme, nonsense and verbal sparring as Little Miss Muffet refuses to be charmed, patronised or easily impressed.

Bedtime becomes a comic battle of wills between a reluctant child, his equally resistant imaginary companion and a mother who knows exactly how the argument will end. Full of linguistic jokes, nursery-rhyme echoes and mock-serious rebellion, the poem follows resistance all the way to the inevitable comforts of sleep.

Hurly Burly and Had a Dog More Like a Sheep

The Rain that Wears no Raincoat and What Warmth Is There in One Old Tree?

The Rain that Wears no Raincoat

What Warmth Is There in One Old Tree?