Poetry Friday

The grand Old Duke of York
He had ten thousand men,
He marched them up to a very high hill
And he marched them down again.

And when he was up he was up
And when he was down he was down
And when he was only halfway up
He was neither up nor down.

-- Mother Goose. Assorted links: Wikipedia link; Mother Goose: A Scholarly Exploration. I like this poem because it's obvious; when you're up, you're up. When you're down, you're down. And when you're halfway, you're not up and you're not down. And sometimes, it seems like all it is is marching up and down, up and down.

MotherReader has Poetry Friday: The T Shirt Edition

Journey Woman highlights Longfellow and curls

Chasing Ray posts part of Ode to Iris Chang

Bookshelves of Doom shares The Cremation of Sam McGee

Fuse #8 presents The Back To School Survival Guide of Poetry

The Old Coot publishes for the first time reprints (with permission) Untitled (Woodsmoke, leaves of golden brown)

Gotta Book proves it's never too early for Halloween

A Year of Reading and The Excrement Poem (nope, not a typo)

Please post in the comments if you have a poem this fine Friday morning.

Edited to add:
By Sun And Candlelight honors the US's first Children's Poet Laureate with When Tillie Ate The Chili

Chekhov's Mistress illustrates how poetry can ruin your career

Little Willow puts cats in the spotlight with To My Cat

What Adrienne Thinks About That toasts some marshmallows

and:

Big A little a reviews Drumbeat in our Feet

and:

Farm School and Historical Associations

and

Susan Taylor Brown reminds me college, Susan Polis Schultz and Blue Mountain cards

Book Buds describes a poetry book as "Edward Gorey meets Magritte."

and Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast jumps into the Poetry Friday tradition with E.E. Cummings

and Scholar's Blog has Witches' Chants (and a reminder, go there and submit for the next Carnival of Children's Literature!)

and

a Wrung Sponge with William Carlos Williams

lightingthefires parties with October

The Simple and the Ordinary with the poem I almost picked

and

Tockla contributes a Poke In the I

The Cajun Cottage Under the Oaks Woke Up to a Chelsea Morning

Chicken Spaghetti highlights Auden: an interesting book about him and a poem

and

Kelly Fineman has a short parody from Lewis Carroll

and Ms Mac brings on the spooky