How Sweet It Is!: A Poetry Tale

Grace Lin at YUMMIES candy store in Kittery, Maine (2008).

Two years ago, my friend Grace Lin and I came up with what we thought would be a good idea for a poetry collection. We both love sweets—so we decided candy would be a good subject. In early June of 2008, Grace and I headed off to Kittery, Maine. Why Kittery, Maine? Because it’s the home of YUMMIES, a fantastic candy store that has thousands of kinds of candies—some I haven’t seen in stores since my childhood.

As soon as we arrived at Yummies, Grace and I got shopping baskets and proceeded to go up and down the aisles and fill them with all kinds of goodies—including salt water taffy, fireballs, gummi worms and bears, caramel creams, marzipan, butter mints, maple sugar candy, marshmallow cones, candy necklaces, rock candy, red licorice, circus peanuts…. I could go on.

Then we returned to my house for research—tasting the different candies. We thought the shopping spree at Yummies and the candy eating would inspire me to write some “sweet” poems.

I also bought books about candy to read for information. I learned some really interesting things about licorice and marshmallow and candy canes and chocolate. I thought I’d include some of that interesting information in the collection.

My collection of candy poems takes you through a year with sweets. For example, there are poems about a heart-shaped box of chocolates for Valentine's Day, marshmallow chicks for Easter, toasting marshmallows for summer, licorice for Halloween, chocolate coins for Hanukkah and Christmas.

Here is one of the poems from my Sweet Dreams collection that I thought would be good for posting on a day in June.

SALT WATER TAFFY

Sticky morsels of candy
Wearing waxy suits…
An alphabet of flavors
To tantalize my sweet tooth:
Apple
Banana
Bubble gum
Butterscotch
Caramel
Cherry
Chocolate
Double mint
Dreamsicle…

DELICIOUS!

These tasty tidbits of taffy are
Ooey
and
Gooey
and
Chew-chew-chewy!!!

Must rest my mandible

For the next round

Of masticating madness.

These are some of the books that I read:

The Poetry Friday Roundup is at Two Writing Teachers.