March 17, 2020 by Philip Lewenstein

My Amazing Aunt: Poet/Author, Rhyme Rock Star

I have been fascinated with rhymes for many years. I will try to rhyme a couple words or string together a couple sentences that rhyme. I enjoyed reading the poems and stories of Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss to my children.

My attempts at rhymes bring mixed reactions from my family. Sometimes, I receive a polite smile or chuckle, sometimes a “oh, not again,” or sometimes a clear “no” before I can finish uttering the words.

Given my mixed success with rhymes, I have been pleased to discover that my amazing Aunt Ida J. Lewenstein, a resident of San Mateo in the San Francisco Bay Area, is a rhyme rock star. More than that, she is a literary treasure—an excellent poet and author. 

Ida’s mastery of rhyming has evolved from rhyming words as a child, to using rhymes in English as a Second Language (ESL) lessons, to writing poems with rhymes, to incorporating those rhymes in stories. Now, in her 80s, she is publishing colorful, delightful children’s books. Above all, she is a self-proclaimed rhyming addict. And she is darn good at it.

“I will admit it,” Ida says. “I am a rhyming addict. It doesn’t matter if I am in the elevator, at dinner with friends, or at the grocery store. It is what I do and I can’t stop. Maybe someday my doctor will prescribe me a cure, but until then, I am going to keep on rhyming and have lots of fun on the way.”

In fact, Ida says her target audience is those who like to have fun, including kids, parents, grandparents, teachers, and story tellers. Many poems are geared toward teachers and parents who may struggle to get children, age four to eight, to read.

“When we read to kids, the parents almost always jump in and rhyme anyway,” Ida says. “So whether you are reading to children, or children are reading to you, my rhymes are meant to be fun, whimsical, and tell stories.”

In the last few years, Ida has published six children’s books. With her books on display, Ida read her poems and stories to a large audience on Sunday, February 2, in a “Book Release Party & Story Time” event at Books Inc. in Palo Alto several hours before the 49ers lost to the Chiefs in the Super Bowl.

Ida’s youngest son, Dan Jenkins, her general manager, chief executive, and marketing guru, describes the book release party as “like singing opera at the Met or playing country music at the Grand Ol Oprey.”

Before Ida was five, she was rhyming words; her cousin would type them, although Ida calls these rhymes “insignificant” and doesn’t have any of them now.

Let me tell you

A little about me

I’ve been writing poems

Since the age of three

Come to think of it

I might have been four

I really don’t remember

But then, who keeps score?

Ida J. Lewenstein

Ida attended the University of Washington in Seattle and received an elementary-teaching credential at San Francisco State University in 1953. She was an elementary teacher in the Bay Area for several years and worked as a social worker for the city and county of San Francisco. She married San Francisco State University Professor Morris (Morrie) Lewenstein in 1958 and raised her two boys, Jay and Dan.

Both Ida and Morrie shared a lifelong passion for learning and teaching, a passion reflected in Ida’s writing. When the opportunity arose to return to teaching, Ida jumped at the chance and found her second career as an ESL instructor, teaching adult refugees from war-torn Central America. In fact, her poems and books evolved from ESL lessons.

Several years ago while visiting my mother, I noticed that she had been receiving packets of poems from Ida. As I read them, I was impressed and started to learn about Ida’s talents.

I discovered that Ida’s poems can be divided into three categories:

I write for children

Young and old

They seem to like

How my stories unfold.

And, too

I write about the environment

It demands my attention

Climate change and urban neglect

Are issues than I mention…

And then there’s fun and fantasy

There’s a lot of that in me

You will see it in my story-poems

And in others, hopefully.

Ida J. Lewenstein

As noted in her rhyme, concerns about the environment, pollution, and climate change have been  recurring themes in Ida’s work.

The die is cast

The experts say

The world is warming

Day by Day

Time is fleeting

Time and tide won’t wait

Time is fleeting

It bears repeating

We must act

Before it is too late

From “The World Is Warming”

Consider the litter

We SO willingly disown-

It keeps on growing

With a life of its own

It’s out there!

It’s down there!

It’s around every turn

We neglect it-

We reject it-

It’s not OUR CONCERN

From “Consider the Litter”

Stuff it in the can, man-

Slam it in the can,

Do the best you can, man

KEEP UP your neighborhood

This land was made for green, man

Nothing in between

Keep it nice and clean, man

It’s your neighborhood

From “Be Good to Your Neighborhood”

It’s really a pity

How much we dirty our city

With bottles, paper, and food

We need to be more dutiful

To America the Beautiful

Let’s make it everyone’s goal

From It’s “Really a Pity”

Plastic bag

You’ve been long at my side

Carrying my packages

Narrow and wide

However, we have discovered

(We were never aware)

That you’re not biodegradable

And you POLLUTE the air!

Come EARTH DAY

We must bid you adieu

So long, my friend

Your days are through!

From “An Ode to a Plastic Bag”

Listen Up, President Trump!

Take off your rose-colored glasses

Our planet is being polluted

By greenhouse gasses!

From “HUMPTY TRUMPTY”

About four years ago, I was thrilled to receive a copy of Ida’s first children’s book, Poor Old Goat.

“The story started as an ESL lesson in pronunciation of OA as in GOAT,” Ida says. “The general rule, with exceptions, is that when any two vowels come together, the first one says its name and the second is silent—goat-boat-float-moat. As I reviewed all of those words, I said to myself, ‘There’s a story in here someplace—and by God there was!’ That’s how the goat book was born.”

The book is about a poor old goat on the side of a hill who falls into a moat but finds a big problem: he can’t swim and he can’t float. This line is part of a chorus children and parents love to belt out: “Poor Old Goat, Poor Old Goat, He Can’t Swim, and He Can’t Float.” The story continues and ends happily with some friends rescuing the poor old goat with a rope on a slope.

A Sad Little Dog, Ida’s favorite, is a story about a sad little dog who sits next to a wise old frog on a nearby log. The whimsical story explores how the little dog thinks of himself being small, and how he can’t do much compared to a Great Dane. But the wise frog counsels him on the benefits of being small, and, at the end, the dog gains self confidence and understands that being small has its place.

The Weary Clock is about a clock who is tired of hearing the same old “tick tock.” The weary clock is so annoyed with the same old sounds that he starts to go crazy and complains to other clocks about the same old tick tocks. The clock goes off on a journey around the neighborhood to find a new sound, and, fortunately, the clock sees a boy with a stick tapping away along a fence. The clock likes this new sound of “tock tick” and happily adopts it.

Jump Up is a story book for young children starting to read. It also is interactive, as children are encouraged to jump, reach, and spin around the stars, moon, and sky.

My Secret Rocket is another rhyming poem about a boy who experiments with a rubber band and stretches it, pulls it, and shapes it into a rocket launcher. The story winds the reader through all the fun things that one can do with it.

Flights of Fancy is an anthology of three poems: “A Big Fat Rat,” “Ode to a Green Bean,” and “A Rock.”

For more information on these books, see Ida’s website –Itstherhyme.com as well as her Facebook page, Ida Lewenstein and poems by Ida, or contact Grapple Hook Marketing Inc., 813-877-4665, djenkins@grapplehook.com.

Ida is long-standing member of California Writers Club; her poems and stories have been published in several of the club’s anthologies, local publications, contests, online journals, and newspapers.

As Ida continues to create new rhymes, she worries about rhymes taking a back seat to other forms of poetry.

Doesn’t anyone write poems in rhyme anymore?

Has rhyme gone the way of the dinosaur?

Where are the likes of Ogden Nash and Poe?

Where are they now? Does anyone know?

There is a generation of poets

Given to free verse

To them rhyming is restrictive

Almost a curse

As for me…

I’ll keep rhyming

That’s the way I am

Just think…if no one every rhymed…

There’d be no Mary

Nor her little lamb.

From “Doesn’t Anyone Write Poems in Rhyme Anymore?”

I read a perplexing poem today

I’m not really sure

What it’s trying to say

It harps on one word-

One word, ad infinitum

But don’t look at me

I don’t write ‘em

I just scratch my head

In serious doubt

And leave it to you

To figure it out.

There is no flashes of Ogden Nash nor hint of Edgar Allen Poe. Rather I find it stuck in

             Neutral

     With simply no place to go.

Please help me out

It’s tough to see

Is this really poetry???

From “A Perplexing Poem”

There’s no question about Ida’s poems; they represent rhyming at its best; you can forget about the rest.