I wanted to share a poem with y'all that I came across in eighth grade. It had a profound effect on me, and I hope that you can see why. Enjoy.



Pretty Good
There once was a pretty good student,
Who sat in a pretty good class,
And was taught by a pretty good teacher,
Who always let pretty good pass.

He wasn't terrific at reading,
He wasn't a whiz-bang at math,
But for him education was leading
Straight down a pretty good path.

He didn't find school too exciting,
but he wanted to do pretty well,
And he did have some trouble with writing,
And nobody had taught him to spell.

When doing arithmetic problems,
Pretty good was regarded as fine,
five and five needn't add up to be ten,
A pretty good answer was nine.

The pretty good class that he sat in,
Was part of a pretty good school,
And the student was not an exception,
On the contrary , he was the rule.

The pretty good school that he went to,
Was there in a pretty good town,
And nobody there seemed to notice,
He could not tell a verb from a noun.

The pretty good student in fact was
Part of a pretty good mob,
And the first time he knew what he lacked was,
When he looked for a pretty good job.

It was then when he sought a position,
He discovered that life could be tough,
And he soon had a sneaky suspicion,
Pretty good may not be good enough.

The pretty good town in our story,
Was part of a pretty good state,
Which had pretty good aspirations,
And prayed for a pretty good fate.

There once was a pretty good nation,
Pretty proud of the greatness it had,
Which learned much too late, if you want to be great
Pretty good, is in fact, pretty bad.