Zucchini Poetry and Song

2017
Poetry is back!
In 2017 we have reinstated the much-loved Zucchini Poetry, not as  a contest but as a poets corner called Zucchini Poetry Pepo (pepo, from the zuke's botanical name Cucurbita Pepo). Prizes are out but acollades are in as you are invited to share your zucchini-inspired poetry and song in an un-amplified supportive circle of like-minded balladeers.

Zucchini Pepo Collective Poem #1 
(facilitated by Marion Little)

Jumped out of bed and chopped zucchini leaves.
Loaded up 125 green and yellow zucchini.
Dreamt of this festival:
A zucchini coloured open house.

Children in the stream catching zucchini boats.
Little neighbour children holding hands.
Lovers in a dangerous time.
I knew it was true.

The prizes will be awarded.
No casualties or breaches.
zucchini-wide smiles.

And then I'll be asleep.

My Zucchini Boat
contributed by Bill Slavin

It’s been a summer of Biblical proportions, days all filled with cold and rain
A blowhard with bizarre distortions, spreading grief and lies and pain.
Irma roaring in her fury with Harvey even barely spent
Millions forced to suffer daily through this summer of discontent.
With half the world it seems afloat, and half consumed in fiery flames
I think I’ll build a zucchini boat and play a few zucchini games.

And what a boat I plan to build, my hollowed, hallowed magic gourd
Because I know that I will fill my boat with things that I adore.
Artists, poets and peacemakers, up they’ll march two by two
Seed collectors, pollinators, these will make my motley crew.

I’ll turn ‘way Apple and their breed, their iPhones five, and six, and seven!
No room for their corporate greed in my imagined zucchini heaven.
Suing lawyers and their ilk will certainly not dare to board.
(Their policy of risk aversion should happily keep them ashore.)

Bureaucrats and paid joy-killers, assassins of a wondrous world
Confidence men and fear instillers with their flags of hate unfurled.
All the horrid climate deniers arguing that day’s now night
Racists, bigots all those liars with their claiming that white is might.
Terrorists and sabre rattlers, all that deal in death and war
Tricksters, jailers, garbage makers rotten to their miserable core
These and more I’ll turn away, stop them stepping on my boat.
All of these will stay behind, when nature’s deluge sets us afloat.

Singers, dancers, storytellers, those with sunshine in their soul
All that shun life lived in cellars, all that make this world so whole.
I won’t forget our furry cousins, those that fly and those that swim
Creepers, crawlers by the dozens will fill my zuke boat to its brim. 
I’ll rig my boat with solar panels, power it with organic beans
Guide it through life’s turbulent channels, sail it over lakes serene.

On my zucchini boat we’ll wallow, breasting every adverse wave
Floating over evil’s hollow twisted concrete shattered grave.
When the dove flies back with laurel, when rainbow promises “No more!”
Then our boat through tranquil waters will finally land on gentle shore.
And at the close of this turbulent summer, when the skies have ceased to pour
We’ll celebrate life’s simple joys here on Baxter’s sunny shore.


2016
2016 marked the transformation of the Poet Laureate Contest into an Open Mike event on the festival stage, where we welcomed songs and poetry dedicated to the zucchini. We had one lovely entry this year, a song by Marion Little, which she graciously shared.


Baby Zucchini 

Lyrics by Marion Little - to the tune, including some lyrics, of Baby Beluga by Raffi


Verse 1:

                                  

Baby Zucchini in the compost heap,

                       

Grow so wild and you grow so deep.

G7 

Heaven above, and the mulch below,

                                

Just a little green gourd on the grow.



Chorus:

                                               

Baby ZucchiniOh Baby Zucchini, is the sunshine warm?

                          G7   

Is your mama home with you, so happy.



Verse 2:

Way down yonder where the chipmunks play,

Where you bloom and you vine all day;

Rain rolls in and the rain rolls out,
So many little gourds all about


(Chorus)


Verse 3:

When its dark, youre all watered and fed.

Curled up snug in your garden bed.

Moon is shining and the starts are out,

Good night little gourd good night


(Chorus)


Repeat Verse 1

End by repeating the last line of Verse 1

2105
The Zucchini that Would Not Die
Written by Elizabeth Slavin 2015 Poet Laureate 

I planted my garden, May twenty-five
Deciding one zucchini was ample to thrive.

My garden was fertile -
An old horse paddock.
Straw, manure and sand
No rocks to wreak havoc.

My husband and I, we drive a truck
2 weeks out, one week home -
And all that rich muck
The garden thrived, beets, lettuce and corn
And among this a zucchini monster was born.

It was huge! A 20 pounder
UGLY and GREEN
It's vines grew over the carrots and beans!
It covered the lettuce, trampled the beets,
Shaded the garden with its big green leaves.

"This plant has to go!" I cried, hefting my hoe.
I hacked and I chopped -
Pulled it up by the root
And gave that 20 pounder a whack with my boot!!

It lay there all summer, gradually rotting.
Left to die slowly -
An omen, a warning!


Next year, the garden I tilled and I planted
Beets, radishes, lettuce,
Tomatoes, potatoes.
NO ZUCCHINI!
I was done with that meanie.

Two weeks away and then one week at home
My garden was calling and out back I did roam.

The plot was in ruin!
No neat rows did I see
But hundreds of thousands of teenie zuc-chi-nis!

I was disgusted! I was MAD!
I felt I'd been had.
"I'll get you," I said, and brought in the horses.

Now horses are grazers,
They plant their own feed
What comes out in their (poop)
Is all full of seed....

So, returned to their field
They did what they do
Eating and pooping
And planting their food.


The following Spring I strolled down the lane.
The garden was growing – and nothing insane.
I admired the horses... then cried out in horror:
ROBERT! QUICK! HURRY! Bring out the mower!

All over the field, over rocks, under trees,
Were thousands, millions
ZU – CHI – NIIIIS!

 Later....

Disaster diverted, my blood pressure right,
I walked to the outhouse
It was a beautiful night.
Stars twinkled, there was a light breeze,
I looked to the stars...

My toe caught a vine and I fell to my knees!

Rolling out of the dark, vines out-stretched, it appeared
Grew over the path
And then disappeared.

I beat on my breast, I moaned and I cried
It was the MEANIE ZUCCHINI
That WOULD NOT DIE-E-E!

Zomblcchini Apocalypse
Written by Marion Little 2015 Poet Laureate Runner up 

Green limbs shoot up.
Stretching,                   reaching,
writhing,                       creeping.
From the depths of decay;
. yellowing bodies crawl!
Two,
Three,              four,
Eight,                           twelve;
Thirty-six, seventy-seven, one-hundred-and-five!
Relentlessly                 clambering                  up                    from                the                   mulch.
Zombicchini, zombicchini, zombicchini!!!
Sound the alarm!
Heed the call
Guard the gate!
Gourd save us all!
Hack them.
Slice them,
Grate them, 
Dice them,
Jullienne, shred and chop!
Toss them,
Boil them, 
Sear them, 
Toast them,
Roast and torch until they pop!
Ever watchful.
Ever vigilant.
Standing ready.
Holding steady.
Until first frost 
drives them down; 
rotting,             frozen,             underground.

2014
Zucchinis - with apologies to Joyce Kilmer

Written by Mark Hamel 2014 Poet Laureate

I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a zucchini

A plant whose lovely flowers
Presage a fruit of otherworldly powers;

A specimen of supernatural growth potential
It behooves us to be most deferential

A veggie of prestigious size,
Why – it can even be weaponized!

Whose fruit garners a second look –
Methinks that monstrous one be from Millbrook!

Sometimes the size can make us doubtful
How can the sun create something so monumental?

Still there may be some doubts we harbour
Until we hear… "Oh – that one belongs to Joe the Barber!”

2013
Ode

Written by Jackie Brown 2013 Poet Laureate

Welcome to the world M'Lord 
You handsome devil, George the gourd 
So sweet and firm and very teeny 
A royal squash, a young zucchini.
Thru all the pomp and circumstances 
Princely bows, Beefeater stances 
Rings and thrones and drums a beatin' 
Bet your crown you will be eaten. 


2012
Untitled

Written by Jim Slavin 2012 Poet Laureate

Our veggie garden's looking posh,
With yummies to augment our nosh,
And better than the Mackintosh
Is our "courgette" zucchini squash.

We love its gleaming golden hue,
Which in our salad does imbue
A contrast, and, when in ragout
Doth elevate the humble stew.

When summer days begin to wane,
We walk our garden once again 
And view the mounds where squash once grew,
And plan next year to write "haiku".


Untitled

Written by Robert Beda (Age 12) 2012 Junior Poet Laureate

Zucchini are great.
Zucchini are fine,
as they sit atop
their lovely green vine.

They simply sit there
and glint in the sun
until, of course,
you want to have fun.

You can slice them 
and dice them
and eat them with noodles.

Or bake them 
or shake them 
or feed them to poodles.

They top any food,
peanuts or rice,
and also go well 
with most any spice.

Now it should be
quite plain to see 
that a big part of me
is the lovely zucchini.

2011
Ode to the Zucchini


Written by Avery Morris (Age 12) 2011 Poet Laureate


The glorious zucchini sits atop its throne of soil
Its leaves flat thick and lush
Its stem a twisted coil
The pretty flowers bloom orange and blush
Beside the zucchini green
A royal shade so proud and strong
Fit for a vegetable queen


Plant a seed it won’t take long
For you to have a bunch
You’ll have so much you could feed King Kong
And then have some more for lunch
Stew a bunch, boil some more
Add some to the tortellini
This lean, green, meanie zucchini really wasn’t teeny


So glorious when ripe and green
No veggie could ever beat it
Until of course you then are forced
To open wide and eat it.


My Zucchini Poem


Written by Grace Hatherly (Age 10) 2011 Junior Poet Laureate


Oh, zucchini, zucchini
Sometimes you can be teeny
But with lots of TLC
You'll shine with glee
And maybe become 
As big as me.


Oh my zucchini, zucchini
You'd no longer be teeny
You'd be even better
Than a peony.


Now zucchini, zucchini
Since you're no longer teeny
I'm afraid we must say good bye.
Chop, chop, chop, pop, pop,
And now you're a zucchini pie.


2010
Zeke the Diminutive Zucchini

By Tara Luecke,  2010 Poet Laureate

 Zeke, the freak, wanted to roam,
He crashed the gate and ran from home.
He never grew bigger than a giant green pea;
oh, please, bring my Zeke back to me :)

Zucchini Families, all around,
check your cellar, watch your ground!
Young Zukes wander this time of year;
look at Zeke, my poor, sweet dear.
There's nothing to say, nothing to do,
when pubescent zucchinis run from you.
Give 'em the love and a snack, here and there,
and they will hang out almost any where!

As for Zeke, my wandering friend,
I'm sorry to say, he met his end.
My cat found the thing on the counter and read;
this must be a toy for me instead!

...He chewed the end till the flesh broke through.
I was sad, 'cause I wanted to show him to you.



No festival of zucchini for this little tripper,
(Takes out baby Zucchini from pocket)
May I now introduce my new buddy, "Skipper!"

Millbrook's Treasure

A Summer Kasen Renga
Started: July 28, 2010 - Finished: August 26, 2010
Written by / between: Margaret Slavin Dyment and Jane Bow

A glass of water
please, if you have enough. Speak
out about water.

Millrace spills  over the dam-
we need cold drinks this hot day.
How lovely you are, Millbrook,
tiny fish in shark-
filled seas. Cry out! Save yourself!

From Whiskey Mountain, forest
greens grow patchworked, dark and light.
In sunspattered rain
trees tall, old, creak, whispering
to harvest's full moon.

Old Thomas baptized all alive,
doubting and desiring More.
'Tween Station Park and
stations of the cross, we reap
seeds old Thomas sowed.
While, skirts swirling, red purple
gold, Millbrook dances her love.

Chicory, orange ash,
Queen Ann's lace courts butterflies
snowballs hug the fence.
Broken laws may parch Tom's soul
but black-eyed sue knows his need.

Lamppost, zucchini--
vote for best-decorated!
Win a long cool drink!
Glacial creek, stone tunnel past,
How sweet this world, will it last?

Ice rubs at hewn walls,
reflects a pale winter moon--
blossoms fall to dust.
Millbrook frozen, silent, cries
Where are you, Thomas?

Will we have our water?
The firetower leans in doubt.
Black-eyed susan droops.
But look, under fence palings
dew-starred grass nymphs are railing.

new subdivision
ends in old dandelions
grown bitter, whitehaired
No Tom here but nymphs advance
 riding daisies, buttercups,

reconnaisance fluff
leading Millbrook's early charge:
We will have water!

seeds parachute past fences
and bulldozed construction sites
skirt the empty jail
where Violators Will Be
Prosecuted... Oops!

It's Walt Disney times for sure
Seeds sparkle like sifting light
that's heating up, trees
wilting, blossoms falling on
hot suburban tar.

Humidity-- nymphs quail, frail--
But lo! Hail to Fern, arms strong!
They land in her ears,
softer than sunlight, whisper
their chants, do you hear?

"Speak out to keep our blackeyed sue
cold clear H2O and you"
Neil's cart, in a bind,
blows a tire while the nymphs' lyre
plays sweet never mind.

Old Thomas knows that feeling
that blast of purple and gold

deep in the soul of a man
who, moon descending,
dared to dream Utopia.

One can lose one's head, but change
still comes; autumn bring its chill--

leaves will fall, nymphs in
concrete culverts shiver, with
black-eyed sue, confused.

Who are these fat zuchinis?
why do they smile in the sun?

Wild vines curl down banks
of Baxter Creek; the old stone
trestle guards the mill's water.

Secret shadows, home of hope,
beyond them water sparkles,

frigid glacial  spring
drawn from under the morraine
black-eyed susans drink
the sweetness of your treasure,

Millbrook. May you guard it well.


2009
Yellow, Lumpy

A Traditional Autumn Kasen Renga
Started: August 31, 2009 - Finished: September 11, 2009
Written by / between: Margaret Slavin Dyment and Jane Bow, 2010 Co-Poet Laureates

yellow, lumpy, cut too soon
no longer salad stuff
destination ratatouille

pale lit autumn moon
smiles as
the beer tent fellow droops forlorn
laughter splashes from the creek
everyone is running

 zuchinis flying young girls eying
    targets dying into shadow
frozen winter millpond
skaters' mittened hands
grasp at cocoa, zucchini bread and memories

twisted pine boughs drop their snow
    to sigh in the night
or is it the Old Zuchini Woman
 puckering on the windowsill
dreaming romance?
On the glass, tracing circles
like a bride's garter, maybe,

or a cross section of love,
green with yellow streaks,
lush seeded centre
grassy targets wet with
exploded zucchini

What joy there was, sighs the beer tent guy,
in an old female zucchini, her every sinew vibrating
under the midnight light down at Mo's.
A souped-up motorcycle growls at the curb
sending out emissions

that, stinking of rotten zucchinis,
drift up to greet the winter moon,
yanking our beer guy out of his swoon
moonlight silvers midnight King St.
snow stings inside the beer guy's boots

as gathering the fedora he used
to carry his dearly beloved home,
he braves the freezing darkness.
zucchini seeds asleep
through love and loneliness

fall finally. Nestle.
And then flower
look, there and there and there!

Follow, follow, not yet blown or fallen,
dandelions, tulips, dancing daffodils

Zucchini stretches verdant vines
dreaming golden petals,
firm ochre fruit

but who gives a crap,
mooches the beer belly guy
Zucchini bikini!
But he brightens a bit at bikini,
the millpond, beer in the sun

Young girls, hair undone,
 still unsung
he could grow a beard
not wither on the vine
not now, in summertime

when the living is so easy,
so many lush zucchinis ripe and ready.
down by the river
on a sun-warmed rock
beer guy sits dreaming of Mme La Zuke

He will ride for her, belly tight, lance pointed
fight for her, festival dressed,

he will win the joust!
he will strike the quintain!
he wonders what that is

while she lies low,
whispering yellow-green dreams with so many  sisters
moonshine on autumn leaves
beer guy walks the trails in his
technicolour fantasies

of knighthood and bride's garters. But then,
russet crimson gold crunching under foot,
he looks down. Sees at last,
by the late harvest moon, himself:
yellow, lumpy, cut too soon
golden aspen leaves arise, airborne
arabesques, swirling forms

they free his beerly besotted mind
and, skin bespotted now,
he dreams of ratatouille.

And she does too, fresh-blooming Mme La Zuke
-they both need thyme--

ah thyme, spring-plucked by his maid,
gives an old warrior the courage he needs
to flower with her in heartfelt stew
to pluck with her under a springlike moon
no longer cut too soon.

Poems by Billy Ditchburn, multiple Poet Laureate winner in the early years

zucchini wars

Written by Billy Ditchburn, 2007 Poet Laureate

it's like world war one in the garden
all hell in the vegetable beds.

the zucchinis went bananas
twenty nine cucumbers dead!
the string beans all got strangled
the eggplants all got fried
parsley sage and rosemary
were cut down before their thyme

the tomatoes and onions were refugees
(with garlic and basil of course)
but the zucchinis brought bazookas
and made a mess of tomato sauce!

the trouble -come on over here,
give us a bit of hush! -
is that one of the damn zucchinis
thinks its george doubleyou bush
and even for a zucchini
that’s spectacularly dumb
he claimed the peas
had wmds
and the beans
wanted nucular bombs

he overrode the UV
(the united vegetations)
and his carrot troops
made vichysoisse soup
of the potato and leek plantation

what were zucchinis thinking
when they agreed to follow this guy
well, all of them are vegetables
and I’d guess the rest were high

and now they’re in a terrible mess
protecting their national interests
in a part of the garden they don’t know
surrounded by implacable foes
and as if to add to their considerable woes
here comes the great green chief
expressing his strong belief
that the war’s as good as won
if they’ll all keep fighting on

my friends my friends mean so much to me
that I'll bash them mash them
slice them dice them
glaze them braise them
mayonnaise them
pick them prick them
eat them beat them
burn them flay them fricassee them
bite them chew them overdo them
till they're free from tyranny

meanwhile,
the sweetcorns full of snipers
the tomato juice will blind
the sugarsnap peas are IEDs
and the potato patch is mined

the young zucchinis (and their moms)
just want the war to stop
but the idiotic statements
keep on coming from the top

it’s gonna take some shock and awe
but that's what God made zucchinis for
they'll be sorry they made us start this war
even if it lasts till 3004
we'll be there at the end
beside the remains of our friends.
Now you may love me or you may hate me
but I’m going to speak my mind
its important for us to fight today
to leave a better tomorrow behind

But down in the vegetable kingdom
That’s just the way life is:
one day a drab disaster
the next a crummy crisis
and its hard to see the end of it
unless something intervenes
a hidden hand of destiny
behind the sorry scenes
to show that we and everything
are simply minor parts
in an overarching drama
of subtlety and art

At last the human population -
alerted by the United Vegetations –
agreed to get involved
and the problem was soon solved.

all the zucchinis were collected
from the worst up to the best
and the worst of the worst, the very worst
were condemned to zucchini fest!

The people threw them in a truck
and drove them someplace called Millbrook
where they turned them into jam
and relish for their ham;

or carved them into cartoon freaks
or shipwrecked them, in Baxter Creek,
or hurled them way, way down the green
in a stupendous zucchini hurling machine

and I can think of several
human leaders of today
I’d be glad to load in a slingshot
and fire far away

let’s pack them into flimsy boats
carved from yellow zucchinis
and let them take their chances on
the hurricane lashed seas.


a sardonic flush

Written by Billy Ditchburn

within
your seagreen fire hydrant skin,
your flesh as young and sweet as veal
conceals
a cornutopia of seeds -
a secret that we rarely read

you are blind to all you eat.
zucchinis make you meat
but they are not feeding you!

their secret life is far away
from that hysterical soufflé
your fingers force
into the hissing oven, blazing
white hot in this desert of nutrition

molten metal lies behind
all the steak and kidney pies
forged in a dog's age
of this world.

turn your world upside down:
a zucchini takes you for a meal,
charbroils itself upon the sizzling grill
and pours you a drink,
maybe two...

blissed out, you chew
rohypnotized by succulent flesh
hot and yielding
moist on the tongue
and as you swallow
with the finality of love
it fills you with its seed

and while you sleep
the seed seethes
each against all in the gnashing hell of teeth
in the acid bath of death
striving for the prize
life
some make it through
indi-gestation,
rolled and pushed toward their goal
wrapped in sweet food.

zucchini does this for you in the hope
that, as you have for a million years,
you will lay your eggs
in a quiet place
beneath a tree,
at the rivers' edge,
when the red shards of autumn fade
and the world turns to ice.

how can it know
we have turned the dinner tables
on innocent manipulation
and deceived the vegetable kingdom
with a sardonic flush?

  green zucchini blues

Written by Billy Ditchburn

I woke up this morning


The clock said 10 past 4
I could hear zucchinis partying
Behind the kitchen door
I got the blues
The green zucchini blues

They were jumping on the counters
Twisting in my bowls
Jiving in the dishrack
Them zucchinis sure got soul
I got the blues
The green zucchini blues

I heard my woman screaming
Round about breakfast time
She broke her leg from slipping
In a ton of zucchini slime
She got the blues
The green zucchini blues

My woman done gone left me
She told me – Listen you!
You never done nothing for me
A zucchini couldn’t do (better)
I got the blues
The green zucchini blues

They’re creeping in the basement
Sleeping in my bed
Peeping through the windows
Running round my head
I got the blues
The green zucchini blues

They’re waiting at the bus stop
Serving at the store
They’re filling up the bathtub
I can’t take it anymore!
I got the blues!
Green zucchini blues!

I’m walking down the sidewalk
Filled with shame and dread
People staring at me like
I’m Mr. Zucchini Head
I got the blues
Green zucchini blues

Doctor! Doctor! Help me!
Take this pain away
He writes me a prescription
You got it! – 10 zucchinis
Everyday! (with every meal)
I got the blues
Green zucchini blues

So I go off to a restaurant
Try and get some food
The waiter tells me
Today’s special is
Grenouille au gratin boulay
With divine sauce messine
Served on a bed of
Marinated nasturtium flowers
Stuffed with wild rice and
Flamich aux poireaux avec
A salade d’homard aux champignons sauvages”

I say – “What, no zucchini, dude?”
I got the blues
The Green zucchini blues
From the tip of my squash sou’wester
To the toes of my hollowed-out
Zucchini shoes

Y