In the late 1970s the Viking, Alberta Co-op Store sponsored a combined pumpkin-growing and pumpkin poetry contest. When you registered you received some giant pumpkin seeds and a Pumpkin Poetry Contest entry form. Here’s what I entered in the contest: 1
Growing Pumpkins
To grow our pumpkin large, I thought,
We’d need the nicest garden spot.
A place with shelter north and west,
Sun to the south, and soil the best.
And so, with tender, loving care
We planted our seedling there.
We added fertilizer too,
We did the best that we could do.
But that small pumpkin would not grow,
The reason why I do not know.
Changed little from the day before,
That pumpkin needed something more.
So every day, beside its root
I squatted down and took a poop.
And even though it sounds absurd
That pumpkin stayed a little turd.
1 Neither the pumpkin nor the poem won a prize.