POETRY TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE BY JO BELL
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POETRY TO CHANGE
YOUR LIFE
BY JO BELL
Poetry is the oldest, liveliest, loveliest form of word play. It helps us to express
excitement, joy or anxiety and encourages us to think creatively about our own
experiences. But it also extends what children do every day: tell a story, tell a
joke, express emotion, break down taboos.
Poetry was invented to make a story easier to remember and retell, so it shapes
the greatest stories in the world – the Odyssey, the Indian epic Mahabarata or
England’s Robin Hood. Poetry tells a tale, praises a hero or teaches a lesson;
gets us laughing with limericks, or singing with a ballad. It constantly explores the
many rich ways in which ordinary words, like raw metal, can be fashioned into
something more playful, more interesting, more beautiful. It’s also the form that we
use when everyday prose is simply not big enough to express our feelings. We
turn to poetry for big ceremonies and great life events – weddings, coronations,
funerals and homecomings. The best contemporary poetry explores all emotions
and all subjects, from picking your nose to watching TV, from losing a parent to
remembering the Holocaust.
Poetry at school is no longer the dry subject that some of us remember. It can
include live performance, storytelling, song and rhythm. A poem on the page
becomes a lively, engaging piece of work that draws in the whole class. Younger
children massively enjoy spotting the patterns of rhythm and rhyme, anticipating the
final word in a line or learning new forms like the limerick. Older children can use it
as a toolkit to work through issues of personal growth or world affairs – exploring
history, the environment or cultural traditions.
Teaching poetry in school can be daunting, but with help from professionals we
can put a bounce into the subject and give poetry back to the pupil, as a form they
can be comfortable and courageous with. Brought to life in this way, it removes
barriers to literacy and allows children to discover rhyme, metre and emotional
expression. It draws on every cultural tradition, from Welsh legends to Jamaican
dub. Working together on a performance improves teamwork skills. Poetry itself
encourages word play, lateral thinking and real creativity. It develops language
skills, and through the use of simple metaphor and imagery it can vastly improve
communication.
But the impact of poetry goes far beyond technical learning. Reading it can
become a pleasure and solace for life; performing it encourages a real confidence
in public speaking. Our support for poetry teaching allows you to lift poetry off the
page, and makes it a source of shared pleasure, emotional expression and self-
esteem. Communication is the greatest life skill of all; poetry is at the heart of it.
53Poetry Activity 1 / by John Lindley
A BACKWARD POEM
CURRICULUM
LINKS:
This workshop was derived from an exercise set by the poet Mandy Coe in which HOW?
she utilised Matthew Sweeney’s poem Fishbones Dreaming. It is extremely useful Literacy You will need to print copies of the poem above, omitting its title. A large font is
as a warm-up workshop in schools. It requires no writing by the children and is a – preferable. The poem has 10 stanzas. Cut the poem into 10 strips, with each strip
fun introduction to a poetry session. Citizenship containing a complete stanza. Shuffle the pieces and put them inside an envelope.
Divide the children into groups containing no more than 4 in each. Give each
FISHBONES DREAMING: group an envelope, forbidding them to open it until the word to do so is given.
By Matthew Sweeney Once all of the groups have an envelope, they can be told that it contains a poem
by Matthew Sweeney. Do not, at this point, tell the children the poem’s title. Ask
Fishbones lay in the smelly bin. them to open the envelope and attempt to lay out the pieces in what they perceive
He was a head, a backbone and a tail. to be the correct sequence. This can be done as a race to see which group
Soon the cats would be in for him. completes the poem first.
A common complaint raised by a group on first viewing their paper strips is
He didn’t like to be this way.
that there has been a mistake, some of the strips containing the same lines. They
He shut his eyes and dreamed back.
should be told that the poem is correct and that they should proceed. Once a
Back to when he was fat, and hot on a plate. group believes that they have successfully rebuilt the poem they can raise their
Beside green beans, with lemon juice hands so that the teacher may examine the result. Many of the first attempts are
squeezed on him. And a man with a knife likely to be wrong and it requires, for now, at least, the teacher to say no more than
and fork raised, about to eat him. that. If, after others have successfully finished, a group continues to struggle, it may
be necessary for a few gentle hints to be given as to where the reconstruction has
He didn’t like to be this way.
gone awry.
He shut his eyes and dreamed back.
Back to when he was frozen in the freezer. WATCH OUT FOR:
With lamb cutlets and minced beef and prawns. Children can prove very adept at matching the cut line of each piece when asked
Three months he was in there. to reconstruct this poem! It is advisable to mix and match the strips from each cut
up poem, ensuring, of course, that each envelope still contains the complete poem.
He didn’t like to be this way.
He shut his eyes and dreamed back.
WHY?
Back to when he was squirming in a net, On the surface this appears no more than an entertaining jigsaw game for children.
with thousands of other fish, on the deck It can, however, prove most instructive as a guide in how to approach, interpret
of a boat. And the rain falling and recognise a poem’s language and construction. Children taking part in this
wasn’t wet enough to breathe in. exercise are generally quick to identify the repeating lines as some kind of chorus
or refrain and realise that they should alternate those lines with the other stanzas.
He didn’t like to be this way.
The poem is useful too in teaching children to be attentive to language. Even
He shut his eyes and dreamed back.
those groups who, through more careful reading, begin to apply some logic to
Back to when he was darting through the sea, the sequence of the stanzas, often end up with a poem the wrong way around –
past crabs and jellyfish, and others starting with its finish. This mistake is made, of course, because, unexpectedly,
like himself. Or surfacing to jump for flies time is reversed in this poem, rather like a film running backwards. The clue
and feel the sun on his face. (and one often missed) are the words and dreamed back which regularly
punctuate the poem.
He liked to be this way.
He dreamed hard to try and stay there.
54 55Poetry Activity 2 / by John Lindley
THE BURIED OBJECT
HOW? Stage 3
This exercise is in four stages, only the last stage involving any writing. Later in the same lesson, or even at a lesson later that day, the children should
again be asked to close their eyes and imagine this scene:
Stage 1
At the outset of the lesson each of the children in turn should be asked to call Remember earlier when you buried an object in a field? Well, a whole year has
out the name of an inanimate object they have thought of. Should some children passed and you have gone on another class trip to the country. You are visiting
struggle to think of one, it can be suggested that they bring to mind an item that the same area as last time. Whilst on the trip you begin to think about the field
they have at home in their room or one they can see as they look around them in and you wonder what will have become of the garden spade. Has it been
the classroom. They should each be encouraged to choose something different taken? If not, what will it look like now? Will the handle have rotted? Will the
from their classmates although two or three pupils deciding on the same object blade have gone rusty?
is not a problem. They should not write down these objects. The teacher should You search out that very same field and again see something in the
make a note of what each pupil has chosen but should not display this on the distance. It seems much too large to be the spade. You walk towards it to see
board. The children should be asked to form a firm mental image of their chosen what it is. The spade is still there but you no longer care about its condition.
object. If, for example, a child has chosen a pair of glasses, then he/she should Your eyes instead are on the thing beside it. You realise that the object you
have a very specific mental picture of the style of those glasses. buried one year ago has taken seed and grown up high from the earth. It is
the most fantastic tree you have ever seen.
Stage 2
The children should be asked to close their eyes and imagine that it is Spring Stage 4
and that they are on a field trip to the countryside with their classmates. The The children should now be instructed to write a poem describing the tree that
instructions can then be along the following lines: sprang from the object they planted. Prompt them by asking them to cover a
number of points in their poem:
On this outing you come to the borders of a field that none of the rest of the What does this tree resemble? What does its bark feel like? What are the
class have discovered. At first glance the field seems completely empty. shapes and colours of its leaves? What kind of fruit does it bear? What do its
There are no trees, crops, flowers, sheep or cows in that field. There is budding flowers smell of? What kind of branches does it have and what kind
nothing but grass. of birds nest there.
In a far corner of that field, however, you see something but can’t quite make Explain that their poem should be a descriptive piece about the tree only.
out what it is. You walk towards it to discover that there are, in fact, two things Some are likely to write a short science fiction-like story in which they relate the
there: one is a shiny new garden spade and the other is the object you named entire adventure. This is fine, but from that should be extracted only the description
earlier. For reasons best known to yourself (this is a fantasy, after all!) you of the tree itself and the language tightened so that the result more closely
decide to tidy up the field by taking the spade and digging a hole big enough resembles poetry than prose.
to bury the object in. When you have dug the hole, you place, push or tip
(depending on its size) the object into it. You then pile the earth over it and pat WATCH OUT FOR:
the surface level with the spade. You drop the spade, wipe the dirt from your There will be some children who doubt that their previously chosen object
hands and set off to rejoin your classmates. You say nothing about this incident. will lend itself to this workshop. They should be encouraged not to give up too
Within a week you have forgotten all about it. easily. The most unpromising objects can, with imagination, produce the most
And that’s what I want you to do now: forget all about it. original material.
It’s not essential, but it is useful at this point to do something entirely different with
the class. The pupils may initially be bemused as to why they have just taken part
in this exercise but it’s helpful here to introduce another activity or subject (even a
return to their normal school work) that is unconnected with the workshop.
56 57Poetry Activity 3 / by John Lindley
THE NONET
CURRICULUM
LINKS:
Here is an extract from a poem in which a buried object grows: WHY?
Literacy Most children seem to take very quickly to poetic forms that impose some kind of
THE CURRENCY OF GHOSTS (PART) structure or set of rules that must be adhered to. Rather than feeling constrained
By John Lindley by such disciplines, children often welcome the familiarity that a particular formula
may provide.
In Spring I’ll drive a paperweight –
a ‘Present from California’ HOW?
filled with nickels and cents – Explaining the requirements of an acrostic* (pron. a-cross-tick), a haiku** (pron.
into the graveyard mud; high-koo) or a cinquain*** (pron. SIN-kwain or SAN-kan) and then asking children
spin it beneath my heel until it goes under; to write their own can be a very straightforward and useful introduction for them
let new grass carpet it deeper. to ‘set (obsessive) form’ poetry. These three forms, however, are turned to all too
Next year it will bear fruit: readily at the expense of other less familiar ones, equally beneficial.
a wine stem trunk, fully thirty feet high, Ask the children to attempt a Nonet (pron. no-net). It is a little known, yet no
and seventeen crystal branches less effective, set form than the haiku and cinquain. Like those, it is one useful in
heavy with dollar bills. teaching children syllable count.
The Nonet is a nine line poem with a descending syllable count. The first
Come Autumn, when a moon
line has nine beats, the second eight, the third seven and so on down to a last
shiny as a Roosevelt dime
line of one syllable.
bends its smoked light
Here is an example of a Nonet that I wrote:
through the glass vault of the tree trunk,
the churchyard will smother in notes.
HOW MANY?
The offer will stand
By John Lindley
until the dead stand too;
until the ghosts get greedy -
Are there answers found in Wonderland?
first for money, then for life.
How many really understand?
How many scholars can pad
VARIATIONS:
out theories that are mad
It might be fun to try a similar exercise with the idea of the object taking the shape
as Hatters and wild
of an animal. How might it move? What shape would its legs be? What kind of
as cats that smiled?
noises would it make? Grunts, growls, cries, etc.
How many?
Any?
WHY?
Lots.
This is a great exercise to awaken children’s imaginations and to open their eyes
to the idea that poetry can be triggered by the most unlikely objects.
The poem is about the way that many readers, in seeking to explain what
the ‘Alice’ books by Lewis Carroll are truly about, come up with ever more
outlandish theories.
58
59Poetry Activity 4 / by John Lindley
IN THE DARK
CURRICULUM
LINKS:
WATCH OUT FOR: HOW?
It is not a requirement of the Nonet to rhyme, as I have done in mine. Most children Literacy You will need:
are drawn to the urge to rhyme and indeed often find it easier to create a poem – It helps with this exercise if there are one or two teaching assistants present
that way. This option is unlikely to prove quite so easy with the Nonet. The (ever- Mathematics but it can be done by the teacher alone.
present with children) potential for forced, unrelated and contrived rhyming words A method of blindfolding each pupil. Scarves, sweatshirts with hoods worn
is greater still with this form. It can be interesting to get the children to make two backwards or other methods of covering the eyes can be used. It’s important
attempts at a poem in this form – one in rhyme and one not. that the children cannot see through the blindfold in any way. Once, when I
was running this workshop with Year 5 children, the teacher had the idea of the
VARIATION: children pulling their sweatshirts over their heads. None of them could see and,
A further variation can be lent to the exercise by asking the children to turn the I’m happy to report, none of them suffocated!
Nonet’s form on its head and write nine lines starting with a one syllable line and An object for every pupil in the class. Asking the children to bring in objects
progressing to a last line of nine syllables. themselves does not work. It’s essential to the success of this workshop
that the pupils do not see the objects until after they finish writing and children
often find it difficult to keep a personally brought in item secret in advance of
* The acrostic is a poem in which the opening letters of each line, when read the session.
downwards, spell either the name of a person or a thing. The subject matter
of the poem is often dictated by this name. All pupils should be seated and blindfolded. Each pupil should be handed an
object and given approximately five minutes to explore it by touch. The objects
** The haiku is a Japanese form. A three line poem, the lines of which have a should then be gathered in and put out of sight. Tip: If a large group is participating
syllable count of 3, 5, 3. then the first pupil’s object can usually be taken away almost immediately after
the last pupil has received theirs. The children should not remove their blindfold
*** The Cinquain is a five line poem. The lines of which have a syllable count until told to do so, which should be once all of the objects have been removed
of 2, 4, 6, 8, 2. from sight.
A record needs to be kept by the teacher of which pupil received which object.
If the teacher has an assistant, a note can be made of this as the objects are
handed out. If working alone, the teacher may find it easier to have made a list
recording who will be allocated what before the session commences.
Now ask the children to write about their object, making rapid notes about its
texture and shape. Hearing (perhaps the object rattled or knocked) and smell may
play a part here too but this is less likely; touch will have been the overwhelming
sense. The children should note what the object reminded them of – if nothing at
all, then that in itself can form the basis of their writing. They should then be asked
to begin to construct images and sentences from their notes to create a poem.
WHY?
Bafflement can be a perfect condition for the most original poetry. For this reason,
objects that are likely to be most difficult to identify by touch alone are best for this
workshop. Try and avoid the obvious – rulers and pens – and choose instead, for
example, the capo for a guitar and an (unbreakable) ornament.
Following page is a poem of mine that is a result of this exercise:
60 61Poetry Activity 5 / by John Lindley
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
CURRICULUM
LINKS:
THINGS TO DO WITH A CHRISTMAS MOBILE HOW?
By John Lindley Literacy Tell the class that they are meeting someone for the very first time. What questions
– would they need to ask of this person to learn more about him or her?
I could spin this basket-work wheel Science As suggestions are fielded from the class they should be put up on the board.
on a fingertip Some predictable, but nevertheless very valid, responses from the children are
and all the hanging wicker fish likely initially:
would swim outwards
in a widening circle What is your name?
Where were you born?
or let them fall stationary,
Where do you live?
suspended on threads,
How old are you?
as if their hooked mouths
Are you married?
had gulped an overfill of air
Do you have any brothers and sisters?
and their dead fins had ceased beating.
I could roll this wheel With prompting, the children will supply questions that go beyond the merely
on its too soft rim factual and begin to come up with ones designed to tease out the fictitious
until the fish snared the spokes individual’s character and opinions:
in silent revenge
and buckled its flight; Who is your favourite singer?
What food do you like?
test its gravity in air,
What is your favourite colour?
its buoyancy in water,
its durability in earth.
Once these suggested questions have been exhausted, the children are told
Or I could place it in the harbour who it is that they have been interrogating. The chosen subject will not be a
of a Christmas garland, person at all but a place (this may be as local as their home town or as remote
lain spiky and festive as Ancient Egypt).
on an ashen-faced grate, Ask the children to write a poem with each line being the answer to the
and ignite it with sparks questions (or some of the questions) that you have written on the board. They
should not include those questions in their poem, only the responses. Often, on
until the fish cackled in glee
now learning that their encounter and subsequent interview has not been with an
in the flames
actual person, the children will be puzzled and some will, at first, struggle to come
and the wheel sang in the fire
to terms with this workshop’s abstract theme. With some initial guidance, the
like a caroller whose voice
concept will be quickly grasped.
turns crisp in the clear Christmas cold.
Some of the earlier questions may, now that the subject is revealed, prove
inappropriate “Who is your favourite football team?” may be one, for instance,
Having subjected myself to this workshop I found that I had correctly identified
“What is your favourite car?” another. These questions can simply be discarded.
the object (a young child’s mobile) but had not been so perceptive in recognising
This writing exercise can be done by the children working individually or in
some of its components – mistaking, as I explored it by touch alone, bells for fish.
pairs or groups.
I was told beforehand that the object I was to be given would have a connection
with Christmas but, although this information governed the tone of my eventual
poem, it did not stop me completely misidentifying the small silver bells that hung
from the mobile’s threads. Rather than impair the poem, I feel the mistake helped
provide it with a more original twist.
62 63CURRICULUM
LINKS:
WATCH OUT FOR: I can’t cook but I watch people get the ingredients
The children should be warned about the dangers of ruling out some of the Geography my favourite food is cloud ice-cream
questions too quickly, as some, with a little imagination, may prompt a startlingly – my brothers’ names are Tarvin, and Delamere
original response. History my family is bigger than you can imagine
Some children may need to be reminded from time to time that they are to – I’m not married. I got a divorce from Ashton a few years ago
respond in the voice of the subject. Occasionally this is forgotten and the children Citizenship I am engaged to Willington
answer expressing their own opinions. – my idol is Alderley Edge
Here is a poem written by Year 5 and 6 pupils from Kelsall Primary School Literacy my favourite colour is the rainbow
in Cheshire as a result of a workshop along these lines. It should be possible – my favourite drink is the dew
to surmise from these responses the nature of many of the questions that were Speaking & the wind is my favourite singer
compiled before writing commenced: Listening my favourite author is the sun
my heroes are the people that maintain me
KELSALL SPEAKS I lost count of my age 50 years ago
Poem written by Year 5 & 6 pupils, I am as old as Cheshire
Kelsall Primary in a workshop with John Lindley and I carry the eyes of the sky
I am here so people will have a place to live
My name is Kelsall, my surname is Village
I came from God’s making of the world VARIATIONS:
I live in the green of the Cheshire Plain You might like to try this exercise asking the children to create a poem using
I stand very still on a hill, all day and night answers given in the voice of an event (a war, perhaps) or a feeling or emotion
I have the greying eyes of my mystic past such as Love or Pain.
and my hair is the green of grass
I love the fuzzy rain on my tongue
water gives me my strength
I am both right and left handed
my hobby is watching the sun rise and set
my pets are the sheep and cattle
I have visited no foreign countries. I only travel through time
my occupation is to shelter people from wind and rain
I don’t get any payment but my reward is bigger than money
I never go on holiday because I am happy where I am
I like listening to the darkness and watching myself grow
I dislike the sound of mourning. I sweep it away
my worst subject is pollution
I am scared of fire and flood
64 65Poetry Activity 6 / by Andrew Fusek Peters & Polly Peters
PERSONIFICATION AND RIDDLES,
BRINGING WORDS TO LIFE
CURRICULUM
LINKS:
HOW? Exercise 2: Pun/Wordplay
Begin with the word ‘personification’ on the whiteboard. Ask pupils to repeat the Speaking & What drinks/food sound like (or can be altered to sound like) parts of a tree?
word together. Before they guess what it means (unless some already know), give Listening One class came up with various drinks: I slurp Oaka-Cola! I sip Bud-weiser!
them a clue – there’s a word hidden inside which hints at meaning, i.e. ‘person’. – These jokes can also be part of what the tree says: I say, leaf it out, mate.
Discuss the differences between a person and a table. Allow this to lead to a class Art You’re barking you are!
definition of living and non-living (or animate and inanimate). –
Under ‘personification’, write: ‘Making things come to life’ (and no, not Drama Exercise 3: make up an address for the tree
corpses or dead animals. This isn’t going to be a zombie poem!). Explain that “I live at... Ask pupils to think of streets, towns, cities, countries they know
personification is the art of magic – where imagination is a magic wand. Inanimate the names of and see if any sound like tree-linked words. The first joke below
things are described as though they are living creatures. Imagine a table running was a great pupil inspiration! I live in Barkingham Palace, Crown Close,
away – maybe it ‘legged it’, or think of the floor – how is it feeling? Maybe it’s a bit Timberania, Pineland.
flat today. “Honestly, I just seem to let people walk all over me.” The window could
be arrested even though it’s innocent: “I was framed, honest!” These punning jokes Exercise 4: Tree dreams.
are a good way to introduce and illustrate the idea of giving human characteristics Get really poetic: ask pupils to close their eyes and imagine being the tree. What
to an everyday object. do they dream of at night? Where would they like to go? What would they like to
be when they grow up?
Stage 1: Group poem leading to individual writing Stage 3:
Subject: Tree. Insert the phrase What Am I? at the beginning and at the end of your list
First step: brainstorm. Ask the class to think of as many words connected with of personified tree descriptions. Voila: an excellent class riddle poem.
trees as possible and write the resulting list on the board: e.g. types, parts of
a tree, shape, size, animals that live in trees, where trees grow etc. VARIATION:
Sample: bark, wood, forest, pine, oak, squirrel, spider, blackbird, root, crown, This same set of exercises can be used to develop individual, personified poem-
leaf, plank, trunk, birch, beech, alder, chlorophyll, fungus, timber, tall, gnarled... riddles. Ask each pupil to think of an everyday object inside or outside –
e.g. the moon, a pencil, a window, a mountain, a river, a bike, a skateboard, a
Stage 2: Building the class poem computer, a book, a shoe, a road, a school, a poem... Once they have chosen
Exercise 1: A tree is now going to be personified, using alliteration to answer their subject, they can use the group process above to devise and draft their own
the question: What do I... wear/eat/drink? Choose one of the ‘tree’ words riddles, using the structure “I wear... I eat...I drink... I live at... I say... I dream of...
compiled in the opening exercise. Complete the sentences below, using nouns When I grow up I want to...” The most obvious rule is never to mention the word
beginning with the same initial letter. I wear plank... ask for any type of clothing in the actual poem!
beginning with the same letter e.g. I wear plank pyjamas... a timber t-shirt... and in
the summer: forest flip-flops... Repeat the idea with food: I eat leaf lollipops... bark
burgers. Ask pupils what they might have with a burger – they have to add a ‘tree’
word in front of the food this time: Bark burgers with Chlorophyll Ketchup.
Also, try to find more interesting words for ‘eat’, such as munch, crunch.
66 67Poetry Activity 7 / by Andrew Fusek Peters & Polly Peters
METAPHOR, THE ART
OF POETIC WIZARDRY
CURRICULUM
LINKS:
HOW? Group Poem: Upside Down Metaphor Sandwich!
You can begin by taking a subject – say the Sun and asking your group to think Literacy; To produce a whole class or group poem based on use of metaphors, choose a
up describing words/adjectives: yellow, round, hot, fiery, flashing etc. Ask pupils Speaking subject then conjure descriptions using the process above. E.g. “The sun is a...”
to first respond orally, then to write down simple similes based on the following & Listening List the metaphors, sandwich style, one on top of the other, then cross out “The
sentence structure: The sun is like a yellow... The sun is like a hot... The group – sun is a”. Move the subject of the poem to the end so that it stands alone as the
have to think of objects that are actually yellow, hot etc. This might seem fairly Drama last word.
obvious, but the trick is to get them thinking of more unusual things – what – Life boat floating round the earth
vegetables/ flowers / articles of clothing / household items are yellow? There is no Music Car tyre zooming round the roundabout of space
right answer. No idea (within reason) should be discounted. The point here is to – Ball bouncing in the courts of games and gravity,
promote imaginative spontaneity. Collect a simile list on the board. Grass is like ICT Tin left open to shine
a green jumper. The sun is like a round car tyre. The tree is like a tall fishing rod. – Small sweet waiting to be eaten by the soft tongue of the clouds
We can then transform this into a metaphor by simply crossing out the word Art & Design Oven left on for millions of years
like. Illustrate this on a whiteboard to show the process. Sometimes this involves Sun.
moving the word order round: The tree is as tall as a skyscraper becomes the It’s an upside down poem because the title (subject) is at the end. Trying this
tree is a tall skyscraper. The grass is like a green jumper. Explain that metaphor, as a whole group demonstrates the structure so that individuals or pairs can
instead of comparing directly, hints at comparison by seeming to turn one object then devise their own poems. Like the personification activity, it helps to choose
into another. inanimate objects, using a thought-shower to extract plenty of adjectives before
pupils begin turning their similes into metaphor.
Image Development
To stretch your class further, ask them to develop their image (and we’re not
talking a new haircut!). If the tree was a tall fishing rod, what would it catch?
...a tall fishing rod, catching buds for bait. If the sun was a car tyre, where is it
going? The sun is a round car tyre, zooming along the highways of space. The
grass image from above can go further too: The grass is a green jumper worn by
the earth. The aim is to find ways to link the images together on a single theme.
This is more subtle and stretching, but can transform a mundane metaphor into
a non-clichéd and exciting short poem:
The moon is a silver cupcake being eaten by night;
A pearl button, fastening the dark;
A round pillow for exhausted day to lay her head and dream.
Small group devising/discussion/feedback can help less confident writers.
They should aim to produce three to five developed metaphors, describing
the chosen subject.
68 69Poetry Activity 8 / by Andrew Fusek Peters & Polly Peters
FEELINGS THROUGH
POETIC EXPRESSION
CURRICULUM
LINKS:
HOW? Exercise 4: Metaphor
Ask every pupil to think of something sad that has happened to them – perhaps Drama Ask for adjectives/describing words for your heart when you are sad: broken,
begin by mentioning an event in your own life. Answers are likely to take many – empty, shattered, lost...
forms – a pet dying, illness in the family, falling out with friends, moving house/ Art Begin with a simile: “My heart is empty like... an old house”. Then, change it
school, a friend or relative moving away, family break up, death of someone close, – to a metaphor by removing the word ‘like’ and moving the word “an”: My heart
accidents, losing or breaking a precious object, being teased etc. The challenge is PSHE is an empty old house.
to make something powerful and poetic out of these feelings and we do this – My heart is empty like... a crumpled crisp packet becomes My heart is an
by working with simile and metaphor. Music empty, crumpled crisp packet. Pupils can make their own similes and turn them
Imagine you are a doctor. Ask the class for suggestions to write up on the – into metaphors: my heart is a shattered window in a rotten frame; a lost coin
board of words describing the physical symptoms of feeling sad or upset: frowns, Literacy; hidden in the drain of despair.
tears, heart feeling empty/broken, pale face... Speaking
& Listening Group poem leading to individual writing
Exercise 1: Simile Put all these suggestions for creating images together, sandwiched by an (agreed)
Begin with the word ‘frown’. What is the shape of a frown? What is it like? What repeated opening and closing line such as:
does it resemble? Finish the sentence: My frown is like... The day my hamster disappeared,
My frown is like a telephone going brrring, brrring, brrring me some happiness. My frown was a...
My frown is curled like spaghetti. A herd of tears stampeded down...
My frown is curved like a broken branch. My face, a pale stone, in a puddle of sleety grey
And my heart was an empty door, hanging loose in the storm...
Exercise 2: Developing the image The day my hamster...
Take the image further: My frown curls like spaghetti in a sauce of... (ask the class This can then lead pupils to work on their own poems, using the exercises and
for a feeling word. If you want to get really advanced, ask for an alliterative feeling suggested structure of the group activities, but based on their own experience.
word, beginning with the same letter, in this case, beginning with s)... a sauce of
sorrow. What sort of ketchup would go with that? Cruel Ketchup. If you haven’t WATCH OUT FOR:
already done so, this is another good point to introduce the concept of alliteration. This lesson requires a certain amount of trust within the group as many pupils
Or, a non-alliterative example: My frown is curved like a broken branch in a storm may share vulnerable feelings. I often ask that pupils commit to not repeating
of hurt’. what they have heard in the class, outside in the playground – so that everyone
can feel safe expressing emotions. It also helps if there is a PSHE or SEAL
Exercise 3: Collective Nouns (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) framework to provide a supportive
If you have a swarm of bees, a flock of birds and a pint of milk, what collective context for the work.
description could you have of tears? A bottle of tears, an army of tears, a gang
of tears – ask pupils to come up with their own examples. There are no right VARIATIONS:
answers. If they are stuck, ask them to point to any object in the class. If they The same process can be also used to describe good feelings – the shape
say – a pencil case – brilliant! A pencil case of tears! Again, you can develop of a smile, tears of laughter and collective nouns for giggles.
the image – A pencil case of tears scribbling down my cheeks, an army of tears The resulting poems can be illustrated, used for assembly and display,
marching towards my chin, a gang of tears beating up my eyes. set to drama and music.
70 71Poetry Activity 9 / by Andrew Fusek Peters & Polly Peters
SEASONS, WEATHER, NATURE
CROSS
CURRICULUM
Poems based on nature and on direct observations of the natural environment offer LINKS: Exercise 2: Colours
pupils a chance to work with active descriptions. This can be a great autumnal game. Gather suggestions for all the shades of
Art
leaves the class can think of. Then, create similes out of the result, comparing the
–
HOW? leaves with other objects of similar colour. Think out of the box – there are no rules!
Design &
Whatever the season, begin by taking the class outside. Take clipboards and Leaves, gold like pound coins, red as computer cables, red as post vans.
Technology
pencils. The idea is to gather observations of what individuals can see, hear and Leaves, bronze like...
–
touch/feel. Ask for total silence over five minutes as they write down as many Now, switch round the word order to create a new paint range list! Leaves:
Drama
sense-based observations as they can. It can help to divide the page into three Available as part of our exciting new Autumn range, in the following colours:
–
columns for See/Hear/Feel. If necessary, prompt with questions: how cold/warm Computer-cable red
Music
is it? What shape are the clouds you see? Describe the feeling and movement Burnt-toast brown.
of leaves, the colour of the grass, the shape of puddles. Or, make a catwalk-style list of this season’s leaf fashion in the latest shades.
Exercise 1: Looking at how things move Exercise 3: Texture and sound
We know that clouds drift and raindrops fall. But the challenge is to find more Use simile to capture how the texture of natural things feels. Bark feels: rough
interesting and exciting action words. This is a ‘verb’ quest! Suggest some ways of and wrinkled... as my grandad’s face. Or, grass slippery as ...a water-park slide.
moving in sport, dance, at home, at play – e.g. boogie, sprint, high jump, hang out, Again, in silence outside, ask pupils to capture as many natural sounds as they
front crawl. Now apply these ways of moving in describing some of your subjects can. Then, describe the sounds using personification or simile. Birds might be
of choice from the list compiled earlier. e.g. Clouds are doing the front crawl having a natter, twittering about not much at all. What sound does the wind make
across the sky. Raindrops are bungee-jumping. in the leaves? What about the rhythm of raindrops on roofs? The raindrops are
This can be extended imaginatively by using personification: if the raindrops tap dancing the latest soaking sensation.
were alive, what would they be up to? Raindrops, base jumping like nutters!
Raindrops, escaping their cloud prisons in parachute dives. Clouds, scurrying Group poem and follow-up
home from the supermarket with bursting bags of raindrops. Collate the best of these separate images into a group poem. Pupils can then
Try using this idea with wind and with leaves too. e.g. The wind sprints through move on to write their own poems individually or in small groups, beginning with
the air... A school of leaves skip across the sky- playground... Strong gusts beat some of the observations they wrote down. Completed poems can be displayed
up buildings and bully the grass. within illustrated borders, or dramatized or set to music using naturally recorded/
Keep developing the idea further. Once a really imaginative verb has been sampled sounds.
chosen, what happens next? If raindrops swallow-dive, what do they fall into...
maybe an Olympic-sized puddle? Or they might win a silver puddle. The
wind might drive in a cloud-Ferrari, but where is it going? Screeching round
the sun-roundabout.
72 73Poetry Activity 10 / by Andrew Fusek Peters & Polly Peters
KENNING
CROSS
CURRICULUM
This poetic term comes from the Old Norse Word Kenna – ‘to know’. It is a way LINKS: Developing Kennings:
of describing something, often using hyphenated or compound words. In the Old Ask each pupil to choose their own subject or object – a river, book, skateboard,
Music;
English Poem ‘Beowulf’ – the sea is referred to as a whale-road and in another sun, pencil etc. They can be split into pairs with each pupil interviewing the other
Percussion
poem called ‘The Seafarer’ the sea is described as whale-way. to ask what each object does e.g. pencils scribble on paper, make words, the sun
–
steals shadows, destroys night, tans/burns skin etc. Really encourage them to
Art & Design;
HOW? stretch their imaginations in unexpected directions i.e. a pencil making words is
Sculpture
The sea is a good place to start. Ask pupils what the sea does, giving an example rather dull. Can they think of a more interesting action word? Weaving, creating,
–
to start them off: ‘the sea makes waves, sculpts waves, moulds waves’. What does conjuring. It is often the unexpected or surprising associations of ideas that prove
Drama;
the sea do to boats? Supports them, sinks them, drowns them, swallows them, to be the most effective. Once the interviews are finished, ask the pairs to shape
Tableaux/still
carries them. What does the sea do to the shore/cliffs/beach? Creeps up the the resulting descriptions into Kennings. (A little teacher or enthusiastic T.A. help
life statues
shore, hugs the beach, beats up cliffs, punches rocks. goes a long way here).
–
Once you have several examples on the whiteboard – it’s time to perform the Another final step (as an alternative to ending with the subject as the last
PSHE;
act of poetic magic and create instant compound words or ‘kennings’, using some word) is to find a framing device or repeated refrain to use in between the list
Expressing
of the verbs (or other nouns or descriptions) you have collected, alongside words of kennings:
the impact of
connected with the sea. This is the sun, shadow-stealer
disempowering/
Ship-cradler, This is the sun, killer of night,
bullying
boat-swallower, This is the sun, skin-shader
behaviour
people-drowner, This is the sun, cooking up light!
shore-creeper,
beach-hugger, VARIATIONS:
moon’s mirror, You can take Kennings into all sorts of interesting directions. The theme of bullying
cliff-bully, is a good one. What does the bully do? Builds insults, smashes hope, steals
rock-puncher: friendship. The bully I know is an insult-builder, hope-smasher, friendship-robber,
Sea. self-esteem assassin.
Within kennings, (which come from a strong oral tradition with emphasis on
Explain to the class that all you have done is put the subject (word connected with the spoken word), you are always looking for the compound words that sound
the sea) first with the action word or description after. Each individual kenning acts right, whether cumulative effect is achieved through speech rhythms, alliteration
as a description of the sea. Now ask the class to invent their own sea kennings, or rhyme.
using the list of verbs collected so far, as well as more of their own. The best
of these can be collected into a class Kenning poem. To set an even greater
challenge, try using rhyme on alternate lines (i.e. try to find rhyming action words).
This is quite taxing, so an alternative is to try to find just two rhyming action words
and save them for the end to create more impact in a final couplet e.g. Rock
puncher / Sand muncher / Sea. Or, Non-sleeper / Shore creeper / Sea.
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