Too Many Daves
by Theodor Seuss Geisel
aka Dr. Seuss
I’m taking advantage of my position at the keyboard to take note and salute the work of Dr. Seuss who played an important part in most of our poetry lives, either as parents reading to delighted children, or as children ourselves reveling in the music and invention of his poetry. He delights us with rhythm, rhyme, and a certain essential wildness. “Dum-ditty-dum-ditty-whack! whack! whack!,” from Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb, my once-toddlers’ favorite.
Thank you Dr. Seuss for letting us play. I dedicate my favorite, “Too Many Daves,” to the never-too-many Daves in my life, but especially today to Dave Denny, current Cupertino Poet Laureate, and David Tom, my best “Dave” fan ever. Please read aloud to someone.
Oh, and why not list your favorite Dr. Seuss in the comments below?
Sally Ashton
Santa Clara County Poet Laureate
Los Gatos
Too Many Daves
Did I ever tell you that Mrs. McCave
Had twenty-three sons and she named them all Dave?
Well, she did. And that wasn’t a smart thing to do.
You see, when she wants one and calls out, “Yoo-Hoo!
Come into the house, Dave!” she doesn’t get one.
All twenty-three Daves of hers come on the run!
This makes things quite difficult at the McCaves’
As you can imagine, with so many Daves.
And often she wishes that, when they were born,
She had named one of them Bodkin Van Horn
And one of them Hoos-Foos. And one of them Snimm.
And one of them Hot-Shot. And one Sunny Jim.
And one of them Shadrack. And one of them Blinkey.
And one of them Stuffy. And one of them Stinkey.
Another one Putt-Putt. Another one Moon Face.
Another one Marvin O’Gravel Balloon Face.
And one of them Ziggy. And one Soggy Muff.
One Buffalo Bill. And one Biffalo Buff.
And one of them Sneepy. And one Weepy Weed.
And one Paris Garters. And one Harris Tweed.
And one of them Sir Michael Carmichael Zutt
And one of them Oliver Boliver Butt
And one of them Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate …
But she didn’t do it. And now it’s too late.
Theodor Seuss Geisel, Dr. Seuss
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Santa Clara County Poet Laureate Blog 
If only I’d been named Moon Face.
The first book I ever read was one by Dr. Seuss. I still remember theplace and the book and the feeling of reading a “REAL” book.
It was in my tiny library in Brooklyn N.Y. The book was “To Think That it Happened on Mulberry Strret.”.
I have never stopped reading.
How wonderfully delightful! Everyone loves Dr. Seuss!
He was a genius. My favorite as a child was “Hop on Pop.”
“HOP POP We like to hop.
We like to hop on top of Pop.
STOP You must not hop on Pop.”
Favorite: You are you; That is truer than true; There is no on on earth;
Who is you-er than you!
Shockingly, I’d not read or heard of this one before! How boring our lives would be without you, Dr. S. Such a brilliant mind.
Re-reading this made me so nostalgic. When I taught Year One I read a couple of poems every morning. This was a favourite – probably requested every second day – and I can still hear the delighted guffaws and chuckles of the boys at those hilarious names. Great stuff!