ALLIGATOR PIE

Alligator pie, alligator pie,
If I don’t get some I think I’m gonna die.
Give away the green grass, give away the sky,
But don’t give away my alligator pie.

Alligator stew, alligator stew,
If I don’t get some I don’t know what I’ll do.
Give away my furry hat, give away my shoe,
But don’t give away my alligator stew.

Alligator soup, alligator soup,
If I don’t get some I think I’m gonna droop.
Give away my hockey-stick, give away my hoop,
But don’t give away my alligator soup.

Copyright: from Alligator Pie (HarperCollins, 2012), © Dennis Lee 1974, used by permission of the author and the publisher

More about this poem

Dennis has lived all his life in Toronto in Canada, and you will hear his Canadian accent in his reading. When he was a child he loved ...

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About ALLIGATOR PIE

Let me tell you a story. When my children were very young we read Mother Goose at bedtime. Soon, I started making new nursery rhymes myself, and believe it or not, one of them came to me on a bicycle. It's true, one day as I was riding my bike to the store I started hearing some strange words. They had the same rhythm as my feet on the pedals. The first part that came into my head was "Alligator pie", but some parts didn't have words yet, so it went like this "Alligator pie, Alligator pie, If I don't get some De-do-de-do-de-die". Then I started to hear another verse about Alligator stew. Finally I turned the bike around, rode home and wrote down as much as I could remember. After I worked on my poem for a while it sounded like this...

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