I'm A Poet

Arthur's sitting on his bed, reading a poem out of a book.

Arthur: My Sister is a Sissy by Jack Prelutsky My sister is a sissy She's afraid of dogs and cats. A toad can give her tantrums, And she's terrified of rats. She screams at things with stingers, Things that buzz, And things that crawl. Just the shadow of a spider Sends my sister up the wall. A lizard makes her shiver, A turtle makes her squirm, She positively cringes at the prospect of a worm. She's afraid of things with feathers. She's afraid of things with fur. She's scared of almost everything... How come I'm scared of her?

As Arthur reads, we see the events of the poem played out for us. D.W. rushes off screaming when she sees the menacing looking shadows of a dog and a cat on a wall. Only it turns out that the animals making the shadows are just a cute little puppy dog and a nice kitty cat. Francine takes her white rat out of its cage and hands it to D.W., she screams. D.W.'s standing in an inflatable paddling pool in the garden, licking a red ice lolly. A bug lands on the frozen treat and D.W. screams. D.W.'s in a darkened room. A spider on a chandelier casts a large shadow on the wall. D.W. sees the shadow, and jumps up into the air, and grabs onto the chandelier. D.W.'s standing by the entrance to a mine tunnel. Out of the tunnel's entrance comes the end of a giant earthworm with a miner's helmet on. D.W. faints and collapses onto the ground. D.W.'s sitting on a park bench reading a comic book. A grizzly bear walks past, on its back legs, carrying a chicken. The bear sits down on the other end of the park bench, and starts making out with the chicken -- they both start kissing and nuzzling each other.

As Arthur says the final two lines of the poem, we're back to reality. D.W. comes into Arthur's room, and starts jumping on Arthur's bed as he finishes reading the poem. Arthur has his "Why me?" expression.

* * * I'm A Poet * * *

Another quiet day in Mr. Ratburn's class.

Mr. Ratburn: Only two days until the library poetry contest and only one student has signed up: Fern.

(Mr. Ratburn's technique of singling out people and making them feel uncomfortable (as he did with Arthur in #12401 - "Arthur's Tooth") has its desired effect yet again.) People turn to glance at Fern, including George.

Fern's doesn't look very happy being the center of attention.

Francine and Binky are sitting together.

Francine (whispering): Fern never said she wrote poetry.

Binky (whispering): Fern never says anything!

Mr. Ratburn doesn't hear them talking. He's still trying to make the poetry contest sound cool.

Mr. Ratburn: The judge is famous poet Jack Prelutsky. Not to late to enter.

Francine turns to Arthur. No doubt whatever she has to say will be pro-poetry.

Francine: Listen, I'm a poet. Moon, June, spoon, aloon.

Ok, maybe not. ;)

* * *

In the cafeteria, Fern's sitting at a table writing a poem in a notebook. She looks a lot happier than she did in class. She doesn't notice that Binky and Rattles are standing behind her.

Binky: Just thinking of poetry... (yawns) ...makes me sleepy.

With this, Binky pretends to fall asleep on his feet, and starts snoring. He slumps into the arms of Rattles. Rattles grins.

Rattles: Binky, know what's twice as boring as a poem?

Binky opens one eye.

Binky: What?

Rattles: Two poems!

Everyone laughs at this, Rattles, Binky, and Arthur's gang, who are all sitting around the table. Fern narrows her eyes and seethes. She's tired of everyone making fun of poetry.

Fern gets up and confronts Rattles and Binky. They look a little stunned to have Fern standing up to them. She points at Binky.

Fern: You only make fun 'cause you couldn't write a poem if you tried!

Arthur's gang all gasp. Fern storms off. Rattles looks annoyed, Binky looks upset.

Francine turns to Arthur.

Francine: That's the most she's said all year.

Buster: You tell 'em Fern!

Then Buster pumps his arm and does a wolf whistle -- he must like the feisty ladies. Arthur looks worried a moment before Buster does as Binky suddenly looms over him.

* * *

Fern's one of the first kids out of the school that afternoon. She's followed out by Binky, and then by Arthur's gang in a pack.

Fern walks along the sidewalk. Binky runs out to catch up with her, toting his Bionic Bunny lunchbox (with the circle B). Fern ignores Binky as he talks, not even bothering to turn to look at him.

Binky: Maybe I couldn't write a poem, but neither could they.

Binky points over his shoulder using his thumb at Arthur's gang walking together close behind.

• Arthur
• Francine
• Muffy (sans limousine today)
• Brain
• and Buster, bringing up the rear.

Arthur and his friends hear Binky questioning their ability to write poetry. Can't let that happen.

Francine : I could if I wanted to.

Arthur: Me too, no problem.

Binky looks over his shoulder at them. Fern's still ignoring them as they walk along behind her.

Binky: I could write a better poem than you with my brain tied behind my back, Arthur.

Arthur turns to Buster and sniggers. It would appear that Arthur doubts Binky's poem writing capability.

Arthur: Oh yeah, I'd like to see that.

Fern stops and turns around, with her arms on her hips with an angry expression. Binky stops, his mouth wide open. Arthur and his friends don't stop in time, and they all crash into Binky. Binky almost loses his balance and starts to tip backwards. But he doesn't.

Fern: I bet none of you could even write a poem.

Francine: I could too!

Arthur: Maybe Binky can't, but I can.

Binky: There's nothing Arthur can do that I can't do...

At this point, everyone's talking at once, so it's hard to tell what everyone's saying. Buster, Brain, and Muffy move to the front of the group so they can yell at Fern too. (Some of this next bit of dialogue is speculation.)

Muffy: You are so rude Fern!

Brain: Your whole attitude is completely elitist...

Buster: Whatever the Brain said goes double for me... in slightly smaller words.

Binky: Hold me back, somebody hold me back, or I'll write a poem right now.

Fern stops the bickering by raising her arms and yelling as loud as she can. Everyone is standing in a semi-circle around Fern.

Fern: QUIET!

This has the desired affect. It also sets off a car alarm in the distance.

Fern: I bet that none of you could write a poem and finish it in time to submit it to the poetry contest.

Everyone starts talking again.

Francine: I'll bet I can.

Arthur: I'll not only finish it, but it'll be better than Binky's!

Binky: I'll take that bet.

Muffy agrees too, but it's hard to tell what she's saying since Arthur's talking over them. Likewise Brain says something about Fern's upcoming humiliation due to the quality of his poem.

There's a brief pause. Buster hasn't said anything.

Buster: Is anybody else hungry?

Brain grins. Fern's got more to say.

Fern: ...anyone who doesn't has to join the poetry club for a year. Bet? Or are you a bunch of chickens?

Fern makes the pinky fist, and everyone does the same -- they all touch their pinky fingers to Fern's raised arm together to take on Fern's challenge.

As Arthur's raising his hand, he whispers to Buster.

Arthur: How do you write a poem?

Buster: I thought you knew...

* * *

We're in the library. Arthur and Buster have a load of books stacked up around them as they sit at a table, trying to figure out poetry.

Arthur: I don't want to go to poetry club for a whole year.

Buster: It'll be a cinch! We just find a good poem and write one like it.

Buster cracks open a book, and starts to read a poem.

Buster:

The time has come the walrus said
To talk of many things
Of shoes and ships and sealing wax.
Of cabbages and kings.
Of why the sea is boiling hot,
And whether pigs have wings?!?

Judging by Buster's tone, and then his expression, Lewis Carroll doesn't appeal to modern third graders.

Buster: Ayayayyaher... I ya, I don't think I can write like that. Let's find one that makes sense.

Arthur's found another poem. Maybe this one will be the one...

Arthur: What does this mean?

"...Something better than his dog,
A little dearer than his horse?"

Buster: Maybe it's a riddle?

Arthur: What's better than his dog, a little deer, and then his horse?

Buster (after a brief pause): A gerbil that can do your homework?

Arthur: Nothing's better than my dog. Skip this guy, he doesn't like dogs.

That was close. For a minute I thought Arthur was going to regale us with another retelling of the "How I got Pal" story from #10501 - "Arthur's Pet Business".

* * *

We're now in Arthur's treehouse. Arthur and Buster have signed out a load of poetry books, and are continuing to browse through them for the perfect poem to copy.

Buster's found another book, with the word POE on the cover in big letters. This one sounds promising.

Buster: Whoa. listen to these titles:

• "The Haunted Palace"
• "The Conquerer Worm"

Arthur: That must be about a giant worm.

Buster: Listen...

"It was the dead who groaned within."

Arthur and Buster: Cool...

Arthur looks at another book, and this time, he's sure he's got a winner.

Arthur: I got one that makes sense.

Listen my children,
And you shall hear
Of the midnight ride
Of Paul Revere.

Arthur and Buster look at the poem, and there's even an illustration of Paul Revere riding on a horse. This poem's good. It makes sense, it isn't cryptic...

Buster and Arthur figure they're ready to start coming up with their own poems.

* * *

We're in the cafeteria at school. Sitting at one of the tables are the following motley crew:

Binky  Fern   Brain
-------------------
|                 |
|                 |
-------------------
Buster Arthur Muffy

The subject of poetry comes up.

Buster: How long did you work on your poem last night?

Arthur: I sorta watched TV.

Fern and Brain have been discussing something. Fern makes an announcement that shocks Buster and Arthur.

Fern: Brain is finished his poem.

Arthur does a spit take with his chocolate milk, and spews milk everywhere.

Arthur (still expelling milk): Already?!

Brain: Can I read it to you? Any comments will help me perfect it for the contest...

Without waiting for a reply, Brain launches into his poem.

Brain:

I, the Brain, will explain what makes rain.
Water droplets are what clouds contain.
They reach saturation,
Become precipitation,
Hit the ground and roll right down the drain!

Fern claps.

Binky yawns.

Now Muffy has something to say.

Muffy: I'm done too.

My favorite thing to do is shop
For shoes, shirts, coats, rings,
(You can never have enough jewelry)
And games, until I drop,
I love to shop.

Buster: That's not a poem, it's a list!

Muffy: "Shop" rhymes with "drop". Duh!

Fern: Everyone else, remember to have your poems done by tomorrow.

* * *

Arthur's at his desk in his room. Writing a poem by copying an existing poem as Buster suggested is proving harder that Arthur'd thought it would be.

Arthur:

Listen my children,
As I tell you,
About a
Duck and a chicken
On a bus to Oklahomoo.

Arthur: Ewwwggg!

Arthur scribbles through his poem. Creative licence may be acceptable for poetry, but Arthur realizes that forcing "Oklahoma" to rhyme with "you" is pushing it.

Arthur leaves his bedroom, and goes downstairs to phone Buster for some advice on writing a poem.

Arthur: Buster, when you're done with your poem could you help me?

Buster: I'm done, but I'm busy watching a video, sorry.

And with that, Buster hangs up on Arthur. The cold shoulder from Buster? That wasn't very helpful at all!

D.W., (Who's able to come up with poetry on-the-fly as we already know... See #11601 - "Arthur and the Crunch Cereal Contest") decides to help Arthur out. She recites a poem of her own creation to her brother.

D.W.:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
My nose smells,
And your feet do too.

D.W.: Whahahha! That's so funny. Doesn't that crack you up?

D.W.'s so busy laughing at her own joke (which is bad manners, but not uncommon on Arthur) to notice that Arthur's left the room.

D.W.: Arthur, Arthur?

* * *

Next morning, Arthur's in a rush at breakfast. Dad notices as Arthur slurps down his cereal and bolts for the door.

Dad: Why the big rush to get to school?

Arthur: I have to stop at Fern's house.

Arthur goes to Fern's. As he's standing at the front entrance, he hears talking coming from around the side. He goes and has a look at a window around the side of the house. Inside, he can see Fern and Buster sitting on a couch. Buster's getting Fern to help him with his poem!

Fern: Can I hear that again?

Buster:

Once upon a midnight cloudy
A big old bat said
"Howdy howdy"..

Arthur shouts through the open window. He's annoyed with his friend.

Arthur: Buster!

Buster: Woahahhah...

Arthur: You said you were done!

Buster: Wahhh... I didn't want you to think I couldn't do it.

* * *

Fern, Buster, and Arthur walk along to school together. Along the way, Fern gives Buster and Arthur some poetry writing advice.

Fern: Instead of copying other people's poems, why not just write about what you like?

Buster: Who'd want to hear what I like?

Fern: Who wouldn't?

Buster and Arthur cheer up at this.

* * *

At school, during recess, Arthur and Buster are outside working furiously to finish writing their poems before the deadline. Meanwhile, other kids are having fun playing.

Binky chases Francine. Meanwhile, Buster's sitting in a tree writing. Below him, Arthur's sitting down on the ground writing as well.

Buster: I'm done!

Buster's so excited, that he topples backwards out of the tree, and lands on Arthur.

Buster: Ohha... I'm done!

Buster races off, either to hand in his poem to Fern, or to just have fun for the rest of the recess. No such luck for Arthur though; Arthur's got a sad look on his face as he continues to work on his poem.

* * *

We start with an establishing shot of the library, as usual. Mr. Haney walks his dog past the library.

Inside, a load of kids, including Arthur's gang, sit as the special guest, poet Jack Pretlutsky starts the festivities with a poem of his own. Jack Pretlutsky is either a bear or an aardvark person; it's kind of hard to tell.

Jack Pretlutsky: Today is very boring. It's a very boring day. There is nothing much to look at, There is nothing much to say. There's a peacock on my sneakers. There's a penguin on my head. There's a dormouse on my doorstep. I am going back to bed. Today is very boring. It is boring through and through. There is absolutely nothing. That I think I want to do.	During this part of the poem, we see Arthur's gang listening intently to Jack.
I see giants riding rhinos, And an ogre with a sword. There's a dragon blowing smoke rings I am positively... bored.	The kids start imagining. Muffy imagines Mr. Ratburn in his suit as a dragon, blowing smoke rings. These float around Muffy, and she actually starts coughing in the library.
Today is very boring, I can hardly Help but yawn. There's a flying saucer landing in the middle of my lawn. A volcano just erupted less than half a mile away, And I think I felt an earthquake. It's a very boring day.	Binky imagines the volcano erupting and covering the school with lava. Sue Ellen imagines an earthquake. Binky's hopping up and down, she's being bounced around. Maybe the earthquake is Binky.

At the end of the poem, everyone applauds.

Jack Pretlutsky: Thank you, thank you. Let's have our first contestant.

* * *

Fern's finishing her poem.

Fern:

...And the ghosts of all the fallen trees weep.
For a world that can't live without them.

Everyone applauds Fern's poem. Fern goes over and has a word with Jack in front of the audience.

Fern: Thank you Mr. Pretlutsky. I have all of your poetry books.

Jack Pretlutsky: You are obviously a little girl with impeccable taste.

* * *

Jack Pretlutsky: Our next poet is Francine Frensky.

Francine has visual aids and multimedia to go with her poetry reading. Francine stands with a stack of large drawings. Beside her, sitting on the floor is Muffy, with a set of bongo drums. As Francine recites her poem, Muffy plays the bongoes; very much a hip coffee-house feel.

As Francine reads, she flips through her drawings, which show the events of the poem.

They're the typical scribbly line art drawings that Arthur's gang are capable of, similar in style to the comics in #12202 - "Team Trouble" and Brain's sketches in #21601 - "Love Notes for Muffy". Shades of Bob Dylan having Francine go through them as she recites her poem... :)

Francine:

My dad took me to a hockey game
I got hit in the head by a puck
I yelled out -- OW! My head! Ow!
Call an ambulance!
Ouch! Ow!
Oh, brother, this hurts!
Put ice on it!
It's gonna swell!
I got a big old purple lump on my head
And used it for Show and Tell.

Everyone applauds.

Fern turns to Buster.

Fern: Where's Arthur?

Buster doesn't know. It is odd, Arthur not being there.

* * *

The show goes on though, without Arthur. Binky's up next.

Binky:

People think I can't write a poem,
But they are so wrong.
I can write a poem.
I wrote this one,
I wrote this poem,
And I gave it the title,
"Binky's Poem".
So shut up.
The End.

The crowd likes Binky's poem. Well, most of the crowd does.

Muffy: That's not a poem. He rhymed "poem" with "poem" four times!

Fern: It was great. Yae Binky!

Jack Pretlutsky: Our final poet is Buster Baxter.

Buster: These are the things that make me nauseous: Gloppy green goop that drips from faucets. Blue hair that grows on slices of bread. When your big old dog drools in your bed. When a dirty sock drops on your face. P.U.! When your friend's baby sister starts to spew. Half a worm in the apple you bit. Finding a human bone in your jello. Blowing nose slime green and yellow. And people who eat creamed corn with their mouths open so you can see it. The End!

As Buster reads his poem, Arthur's trying to make the commute to the library. Only events seem to be conspiring to prevent him from getting there on time. You know how it is... Arthur has to stop his bike so that a crossing guard can let some little kids cross the street. Once they're gone, Arthur still can't proceed, because a parade just happens to be crossing the intersection, blocking his route. At least, it's meant to be a parade. It's more like a random stampede of parade items. The Binky-esque unicycle rider from Muffy's party in #40202 - "Muffy's New Best Friend" goes past, As do some clowns... The music that the band played at Crosswire Motors in #12601 - "My Dad, the Garbage Man" is playing. A large elephant lumbers along... ...followed by a baby elephant having to run to keep up. After all that nonsense, the way is free at last, and Arthur finally can get back to heading towards the library.

Whew. How do you follow an act like that?

Jack Pretlutsky: I probably shouldn't mention the free butterscotch pudding being served at the reception.

Everyone in the audience make faces and sick noises.

Arthur rushes in, just in the nick of time. He almost missed the contest.

Arthur: Am I too late? I couldn't help it, the street was full of elephants...

Arthur whispers something to Jack, and then Jack announces that there's one more entrant in the poetry contest.

Jack Pretlutsky: Our final, final poem is "Jimmy goes to the City" by Arthur Read.

Arthur: Jimmy was a happy ape Until some hunters caught him He liked the jungle better than The city where they brought him The city was louder The city was meaner Even the dirt in the jungle was cleaner So Jimmy made a daring escape! The hunters were suddenly minus one ape! He climbed the tallest building Because from there he'd see How far away the jungle was From the middle of the city. Jimmy jumped into a passing plane But the pilot didn't wait for him to explain Jimmy flew back to the jungle And told his ape friends in their lair "The city's okay for a visit But you couldn't make me live there."

Pretty standard imaginary depiction... Ape (Jimmy) is just standing in a clearing in the jungle playing with one of those paddle-with-ball-on-a-string toys, when a cage drops onto him. He gets taken to what looks like New York with a bad case of smog and everyone in town arguing, including one resident who looks like a grown-up D.W.. Jimmy climbs to the top of a skyscraper, and tears off one of those coin-operated telescopes from an observation deck. With wires still dangling from the bottom, Jimmy puts some coins into it, and can see his jungle island home from where he is. He jumps into a plane, but the pilot jumps out with a parachute. Jimmy lands the plane in the jungle, and tells his friends about his trip into the big city.

Everyone applauds. Arthur being the last entrant, it's now time to announce the winner. Jack has in his hands a sheet of paper with "I'm a Poet" written on it, and a lot of writing.

Jack Pretlutsky: And the winner of the contest is...

There's a bongo drum roll from off-camera. Nice one Muffy. :)

Jack Pretlutsky: I hate contests. You all win.

Fern: And nobody has to join the poetry club because they won the bet!

All of Arthur's gang jump up and crowd around Fern and Jack.

Arthur: But this was fun.

Buster: Yeah, I know lots of other disgusting stuff.

Muffy: I wanna play more bongoes!

Binky: You can't stop us if we wanna join.

Francine runs up with a clipboard.

Francine: Hey, here's a signup list.

Wow. Now everyone loves poetry.

Fern asks Jack if he could possibly read the kids another poem before he leaves. All of Arthur's lot think this is a great idea, and they all start begging and pleading.

Jack Pretlutsky: Well, alright. Well, Buster's poem put me in mind of one of my own called "Jellyfish Stew".

Jellyfish stew,
I'm looney for you.
I dearly adore you,
Oh truely I do...

...and with that, we go to an outside shot of the library. A copyright notice is superimposed over the screen.

...and that's the end of another Arthur episode.

Well, hey... This is another episode that I keep missing all the time... and now that I've seen it, I think it's great. Nice strong episode from start to finish.

I guess I also have to admit that I'm like Buster in that I liked seeing Fern get angry. You go, girl! :)

Some people may not like these "special guest" episodes, (the Mr. Rogers one (#20101) is a bit weak) but this one works.

One thing that a lot of people notice is the effort that goes into making the show sound realisitic. The layering of voices over one another when Arthur's gang are all trying to talk at once is a facet of this; it's a lot more realistic than having them talk one after another.

Misc.