See How It Flows

I like doing poetry with primary school kids. I like the way they take to it without fuss and declaimers and all that 'ooo I don't do that - I'm not Shakespeare!' that sets in at, probably, puberty. When I do a group poem with a primary school class I always get enough material for 20 poems. It just flows ...

Here are a few samples from last month, the first a group poem and the second a spontaneous offering from a Year 4 girl.

If Only I Had a Flying Horse

If only I had a flying horse
I would fly to Mars
I would see aliens in make believe suits with stars in their ears
I would hear sticky gooey stomping
I would smell the burning of the sun
I would taste the sun smoke and
I would feel the stars
If only I had a flying horse

P3 Linlithgow Bridge Primary School



One day a dark night, did swirl
in the midst sat a pale girl
she sat upon a tiny stool
she sat unflinching though the wind cruel
she was motionless lost in thought
the world cruel, but the world so sweet
it depends whatever path you meet
that she was trapped between the two
and there she sat, still as a stone
with a body that seemed to be made
out of bone
the night winds were bitter
but there was our sitter
upon that tiny stool
so small

Elizabeth (age 9) Great Abington Primary School

Fabulous! I'll be putting them up on the Readers' Gallery as soon as I can, along with some more drawings. Meantime, we continue to be inordinately inconvenienced by snow ... though I did hear a lovely little throw-away on a weather report recently. The pictures were of a snowy sheep farm and the reporter said,
"At X Farm, the snow is deep and crisp and even the sheep are feeling the cold ..."

Cheers, Joan.