On this particular night, however, I decided to channel my temper flare-up into something constructive. Eschewing the usual eye rolling and heavy sighs, I flipped over my sheet music and started furiously scribbling a poem called “The Bitter Snits,” patting myself on the back for such an awesome title. Unfortunately, the poem was beyond awful, which did nothing to improve my mood. So I doodled a man in a sailboat about to get chomped by a shark instead.

Anyway, that title stuck with me, and the poem that goes with it finally showed up a couple days ago. Good thing, too, because I was getting pretty huffy about it! So you better enjoy “The Bitter Snits” now, you hear?

The Bitter Snits

When you hunker in a sulk,
and you slouch and you skulk
like a heaving, huffing hulk
of mad

That’s when the Bitter Snits
slither in and steal your wits–
oh, my dear, I will admit it’s
bad.

A Bitter Snit’s a wormy thing,
a niggling, wriggling, squirmy thing
that plants a nagging germy thing
deep inside your brain.

And then you start the sniveling,
your surly head goes swiveling,
your common sense starts shriveling —
oh, it’s inhumane.

If you blubber, if you bawl,
beat your hands against the wall,
Bitter Snits will come to call,
it’s plain.

So when your temper’s on the fritz
and you sink down in the pits
of your snicky-icky fits
of mope

Just remember that a smile
for a Snit is something vile
and if you do it for a while…
there’s hope.

Just for Fun: Anger Expressions

Writing this poem made me think of all the fun ways we have to express anger and being angry. Here are my top five favorites and a whole bunch more:

get my knickers in a twist
in a snit
fit of pique
sticks in my craw
get my dander/hackles up
gets me steamed up
ruffled feathers
makes my blood boil
hot under the collar
go on the warpath
bristle with rage
gets on my nerves
have a bad hair day
fly off the handle
have a cow/conniption fit
bent out of shape
give a piece of my mind
burst a blood vessel
blow a gasket/fuse/my top/my stack
hit the roof
stare daggers at
ticked/teed off
drives me bonkers/crazy/up the wall
foam at the mouth
go off the deep end/through the roof/ballistic
rant and rave
see red
jump down my throat
had it up to here
be up in arms
have a bone to pick
fit to be tied
gets my goat
spit rivets

And here’s one in Italian:
avere un diavolo per capello = to have a devil in the place of each hair (that’s really mad!)

 Is your favorite on here?

Extension Activities for “The Bitter Snits”

• Have students write an “emotion” poem, focusing on active verbs and sound (alliteration/assonance).
• Have students draw, paint, or otherwise create an artistic rendition of what a bitter snit looks like.
• The Internet is full of lesson plans about anger for every grade level. Here are some of the better ones I found:
  • Preschool/elementary: “All Kinds of Feelings” lesson plan from ADL.org includes discussion, art, and dance; cross-curricular lesson plan on feelings; “My Feelings Activity Book” from ProjectABC; various color sheets on dealing with anger at PeaceKids, including fighting fair,  cooling down, and “getting your angries out”; various activities for handling anger from GoodCharacter.com.
  • Middle school: “What to Do When I’m Angry” from The Children’s Health Fund (PDF).
• Art and music: feelings collage, emotions masks, thumbprint emotions, songs/poems/finger plays, feelings book.
• In the kitchen: Make sugar cookies or cupcakes and let kids use icing gel to decorate them with various faces.

Video Location: Bitter Bluster Road, Snitsville, Italy.