This document contains three poems. The first poem is a nursery rhyme about an old woman who lives in a shoe with many children and doesn't know what to do with them. The second is a Navajo blessing for a house wishing it to be delightful from top to bottom. The third poem describes the memories and dreams of different parts of a house, with each room having its own perspective and dreams of better houses by the sea or in the country.

1. Using LearnEnglish Kids © BBC | British Council 2010
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There was an old woman who lived in a shoe
There was an old woman
Who lived in a shoe,
She had so many children
She didn’t know what to do;
She gave them some broth,
Without any bread,
Then whipped them all soundly
And sent them to bed.
Anon
House Blessing
May it be delightful my house;
From my head may it be delightful;
To my feet may it be delightful;
Where I lie may it be delightful;
All above me may it be delightful;
All around me may it be delightful.
Navajo Native American
No. 115 dreams
by Jackie Kay
The living room remembers gran dancing to Count Basie.
The kitchen can still hear my aunts fighting on Christmas day.
The hall is worried about the loose banister.
The small room is troubled by the missing hamster.
The toilet particularly dislikes my grandfather.
The wallpaper covers up for the whole family.
And No. 115 dreams of lovely houses by the sea.
And No. 115 dreams of one night in the country.
The stairs are keeping schtum about the broken window.
The toilet’s sick of the trapped pipes squealing so.
The walls aren’t thick enough for all the screaming.
My parents’ bedroom has a bed in a choppy sea.
My own bedroom loves the bones of me.
My brother’s bedroom needs a different boy.
And No. 115 dreams of yellow light, an attic room.
And No. 115 dreams of a chimney, a new red roof.
And the red roof dreams of robin redbreasts.
tap dancing on the red dance floor in the open air.
From The Thing That Mattered Most (Scottish Poetry Library)
Reprinted for Old Possum’s Children’s Poetry Competition 2010
by kind permission of the author
Copyright © Jackie Kay