The Puffin and Nuffin -- Robert Williams Wood

For a change of pace...

(Poem #1835) The Puffin and Nuffin Upon this cake of ice is perched The paddle-footed Puffin: To find his double we have searched, But have discovered - Nuffin! -- Robert Williams Wood

Note: Illustration at [broken link] http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/2406/rww/pg27.html

A few years ago, we ran Wood's "The Auk and the Orchid", a wonderfully
quirky little poem with an equally wonderful illustration to accompany it.
Quoting Ajit's commentary on that poem:

  When "How To Tell the Birds from the Flowers" was published (in 1907, I
  think), it was primarily a children's book, but has been described as a
  book of comic verse pretending to be a nature book. Wood was a fine
  illustrator as well as a writer; with each poem in the book he also drew
  two pictures, one of the bird and another of the flower, with such skill
  that they actually _do_ look almost indistinguishable! In truth, his poems
  (this one included) lose much of their comic appeal without the pictures
  that go with them, and the whole book, with the pictures and the verse,
  can be viewed on several sites on the net, such as
        [broken link] http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/2406/cov.html

The aforementioned book is indeed full of several delightful poems and
brilliantly executed pictures, pairing each bird with a sound-alike plant;
today's poem is an added bonus at the very end of the (short, worth reading
in one sitting) book. Most of the poems made me smile; this one made me
laugh out loud.

martin

[Links]

"The Auk and the Orchid" [Poem #1292]:
  http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1292.html

Wikipedia on Wood:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Wood