When I think of James Marshall,
poetry usually doesn't come to mind. After all, he was a master of
weaving a few brief sentences into an engaging story. Prose was his
forte. But in Pocketful of Nonsense, he tried his hand at a few limericks - five, to be exact, a fourth of the poems contained in this collection.
Marshall's short verses are perfectly entertaining, in good company
with classic poems about diners with mice in their stew and peanuts
lolly-gagging about on railroad tracks. The word "nonsense" really does
apply to most of the entries, and they are rendered even more bizarre by
Marshall's colorful illustrations, which display, as always, his wry
sense of humor.
Thus we get Cinderella, star of the jump-rope
rhyme in which she "went upstairs to kiss her fella, / made a mistake
and kissed a snake," puckering up with closed eyes and plump lips while
the snake in her embrace glares at her, grossed out. We get, in a
Marshall original, a bulldog who literally "watches his weight" looking
perplexed at his girth while he licks his plate clean. In another of
his, we see cheerful Antoinette coming in from the beach, her vision
obstructed by a very strange something that causes her mother to
comment, amused, "You're simply not like other girls."
As a collection of poetry, Pocketful of Nonsense
strikes me as pretty short, especially considering the fact that few of
the offerings exceed five lines. I would think it could have been at
least twice as long - but then I suppose the "pocket" might not be such
an appropriate word to employ. Some of the pairings are quite amusing,
while others fall flat, making for a book that is a bit uneven overall
and probably too short. It's not the finest of Marshall's works, but
it's fun to see a slightly different side to his writing. You'll likely
get some laughs out of Marshall's nonsense. It's just a shame there
aren't a few more to be had.
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