Hazel Tells Laverne
By: Katharyn Howd Machan

I honestly enjoyed this poem.  Katharyn Howd Machan puts her own twist onto the classic fairytale of The Frog Prince.  In the poem, the narrator describes her encounter with a talking frog.  She was innocently cleaning one evening; suddenly, a frog appeared in the toilet.  When the frog tells her that kissing him will turn her into a princess, the narrator thinks the idea is completely absurd and ridiculous.  Twice in the poem she says "me a princess," as if she still cannot wrap her mind around the idea.  As the narrator continues to recount the story, I came to the conclusion that she was uneducated.  She uses informal words such as "musta," "flushm," and "hitsm."  In addition, this poem contains no capitalization or punctuation.  I think that Katharyn Howd Machan did this to make the poem more casual and humorous.  Also, it makes it seem more realistic; readers can imagine the story being told personally to them.  I liked the surprising twist to this poem at the end.  Instead of the ending that is commonly known, the narrator explains that she "hitsm with my mop an has ta flush the toilet down three times" (Machan).  By this ending (and the situation overall), it is not hard to see that Machan had the intention to entertain her audience with a funny poem.  In my opinion, the lack of formal grammar achieved Machan's goal.