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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Judith Viorst
Judith Viorst
Born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1931, Judith Viorst is the author of many works of poetry and prose both for children and adults...
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FURTHER READING
Poems about Dogs
from The Dogs
by Joshua Marie Wilkinson
Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog)
by A. Van Jordan
Deep Lane
by Mark Doty
Flush or Faunus
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
for yam sir: elevated blues
by Abraham Smith
Jogging with Oscar
by Walt McDonald
Lost and Found
by Ron Padgett
Roadside Attractions with the Dogs of America
by Ada Limón
Shooting the Dog
by June Jordan
The Marble Faun
by Amy King
Who Is God? So Asked Our Dog
by Dara Wier
Poems about Pets
Eighth Air Force
by Randall Jarrell
Flush or Faunus
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Goldfish Are Ordinary
by Stacie Cassarino
Jogging with Oscar
by Walt McDonald
My Grandmother's White Cat
by Maurice Kilwein Guevara
Next Day
by Randall Jarrell
Ode on the death of a favorite cat
by Thomas Gray
Stones in the Air
by Anna Journey
That Sure is My Little Dog
by Eleanor Lerman
tomorrow I leave to El Paso, Texas
by Juan Felipe Herrera
Yellow Beak
by Stephen Dobyns
Poems for Kids
Antigonish [I met a man who wasn't there]
by Hughes Mearns
At the Zoo
by William Makepeace Thackeray
Be Glad Your Nose is on Your Face
by Jack Prelutsky
Bleezer's Ice Cream
by Jack Prelutsky
Clouds
by Christina Rossetti
Dream Variations
by Langston Hughes
Eletelephony
by Laura Elizabeth Richards
Fishmonger
by Marsden Hartley
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain (280)
by Emily Dickinson
Jabberwocky
by Lewis Carroll
maggie and milly and molly and may
by E. E. Cummings
Mary's Lamb
by Sarah Josepha Hale
Mr. Grumpledump's Song
by Shel Silverstein
My Shadow
by Robert Louis Stevenson
Nonsense Alphabet
by Edward Lear
Sick
by Shel Silverstein
Since Hannah Moved Away
by Judith Viorst
The Crocodile
by Lewis Carroll
The Duel
by Eugene Field
The Eagle
by Lord Alfred Tennyson
The Good Moolly Cow [excerpt]
by Eliza Lee Follen
The Land of Counterpane
by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Purple Cow
by Gelett Burgess
The Raven
by Edgar Allan Poe, read by Anne Waldman
The Tyger
by William Blake
We never know how high we are (1176)
by Emily Dickinson
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod
by Eugene Field
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Mother Doesn't Want a Dog

 
by Judith Viorst

Mother doesn't want a dog.
Mother says they smell,
And never sit when you say sit,
Or even when you yell.
And when you come home late at night
And there is ice and snow,
You have to go back out because
The dumb dog has to go.

Mother doesn't want a dog.
Mother says they shed,
And always let the strangers in
And bark at friends instead,
And do disgraceful things on rugs,
And track mud on the floor,
And flop upon your bed at night
And snore their doggy snore.

Mother doesn't want a dog.
She's making a mistake.
Because, more than a dog, I think
She will not want this snake.






From If I Were in Charge of the World and Other Worries . . ., published by Macmillan, 1981. Used with permission.
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