Poem
- Poem
The Man Who Writes Fairy Stories
A fairy story author I knowstarts work every day when the roosters crow.
He writes very quickly, he writes without hitchesabout fairies and elves and hobgoblins and witches.
He writes about princes, princesses and kings,and keeps going till six when the dinner bell rings.
The next morning he's back when the sky's turning blue.An inkpot's too little, so what does he do?
At the foot of his garden there's a pond full of ink.The blackbirds all gather around it to drink.
And whenever that writer's at a loose end,he goes down to that pond to refill his pen.
He's made up ten thousand stories already,and has plenty more - he's constant and steady.
And if he keeps writing till the day that he dies, perhaps he'll have written that pond of his dry. [End Page 92]
Annie M.G. Schmidt was an Andersen Award winner and an icon of the Dutch literary world. Most Dutch people (in the Netherlands and beyond) can recite a line or two from one of her poems or songs. Known for her wit and humor, her plays, musicals, and television and radio series were extremely popular and her children's books, both prose and poetry, are bestsellers to this day.
