'Mad Jimmy' and Other Poems

By John Fraser

A collection of some of my poems, written in the past two decades.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Olding Press
• Release date: Aug 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781999205010

John Fraser

The author earned a B.A. in English from Mt. Allison University in 1960. Since then he has worked as a surveyor, migrant crop picker, insurance investigator, public relations executive, reporter, radio news editor, UPI stringer, and a teacher in both private and public schools. The one constant through all of this, and now retirement, has been building wooden boats. The smallest are two eleven-foot lapstrake canoes, the largest is a forty-foot strip-built cabin cruiser. He has taught boatbuilding to about one hundred youngsters from Grades Five to Twelve, sometimes with a boat, or several, being built in a regular classroom. Twelve of the pupils took home their own skin-on-frame kayak. He lives with his wife, Lyn, in Victoria, British Columbia.

Book preview

ALSO BY JOHN FRASER

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NONFICTION

Building Modern Backyard Boats

Mad Jimmy

Mad Jimmy’s out with his net today,

Lunch a free bun from Cookie,

White as snow in the morning dough,

‘Hey Jimmy, nice day, would seem—

Pretty one hope to find?’

Has no time to linger,

For hunting he must go.

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‘Hey Jimmy, hey Jimmy,’ the young boys call,

Proud with sweet invention.

Brave and tall as oaks, now he’s safely past.

‘Hey you crook old man,

‘Cookie and Crookie, Crookie and Cookie,

Get anything else for free?’

Has no time to tie them to the mast,

For hunting he must go.

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Tonight, on a sootblack, cobweb beam,

One more pin stuck neatly through an eye,

Two more wings lined neatly in a