by Adam Rex

At midnight Poe’s reciting parts of poetry he’s writing,
Whilst a raven is alighting on the bust above his door.
But the poem Poe composes poses problems, ’cause he knows his
Line on roses being roses has been written once before.
He supposes he could change it–he had lots of rhymes before.
Tons of choices. Rhymes galore.

In his bleary brain he goes through all the words that rhyme with rose,
and throws out clothes, expose, Joe’s, nose, and toes, and maybe twenty more.
Alas, in spite of all of those he sees not one of them that flows
as well as “rose is rose is rose,” the line he used to have before.
“Maybe I should switch to prose,” he sighs, and lies down on the floor.
Quoth the raven, “What a bore.”

Copyright © 2008 Adam Rex. From the book Frankenstein Takes the Cake. HMH Books for Young Readers. Reprinted by permission of the author.

About this Poem

Harcourt created this web page to accompany the book: http://www.harcourtbooks.com/Frankenstein/

You may also find worthwhile stuff on my blog: http://adamrex.blogspot.com/

About The Author

Adam Rex grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, the middle of three children. He was neither the smart one (older brother) or the cute one (younger sister), but he was the one who could draw. He took a lot of art classes as a kid, trying to learn to draw better, and started painting when he was 11. Later he got a BFA from the University of Arizona, and met his physicist wife Marie (who is both the smart and cute one).

Adam and Marie live in Tucson, where Adam draws, paints, writes, spends too much time on the internet, and listens to public radio. Adam is nearsighted, bad at all sports, learning to play the theremin, and usually in need of a shave. He can carry a tune, if you don’t mind the tune getting dropped and stepped on occasionally. He never remembers anyone’s name until he’s heard it at least three times. He likes animals, spacemen, Mexican food, Ethiopian food, monsters, puppets, comic books, 19th century art, skeletons, bugs, and robots.

His first picture book, The Dirty Cowboy by Amy Timberlake, was published by FSG in 2003. His picture book Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich, a collection of stories about monsters and their problems, was a New York Times Bestseller. 2007 saw the release of his first novel, The True Meaning of Smekday. His second, a book for teens and adults called Fat Vampire, was published in July 2010.

Garlic and crosses are useless against Adam. Sunlight has been shown to be at least moderately effective. A silver bullet does the trick. Pretty much any bullet, really.

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