Chicago Sun-Times columnist Rick Telander certainly waxes poetic when lamenting the fates of our oft-underperforming sports franchises.

But now he’s turned his literary and wordsmith abilities to poetry in a new book called “Sweet Dreams: Poems and Paintings for the Child Abed.”

Telander describes a time when he was sick in the hospital, feeling nauseous, and to pass the time he began to write poetry in his head. Thirty years, 42 original poems and 42 artists later, he’s published the children’s poetry collection.

“I thought, who needs poems and soothing more than little kids who are maybe sick or in the condition I’m in or just going to bed generally?” he said.

And while the book’s journey started 30 years ago when his own kids were still young, Telander said that he’s always been fascinated by poetry — ever since his days as the quarterback of his high school football team.

Today, his words can be passed along through the generations. 

“This took so long, the artists and myself, we were young when this started,” he said. “My kids were little and as it developed, by the time I actually had this in process, they were older. So they have read it and now they’re reading it to my grandkids.”