By Josie Whitehead
It’s always a shame when you meet adults or children who tell you that they find poetry boring. I feel sorry for them because usually, somewhere along life’s way, they were made to study poetry as part of classwork, perhaps with an unimaginative teacher, or even a teacher who didn’t like poetry themselves but had to teach it as part of the National Curriculum.
I am invited to take my poems into local schools to read to the children – and many of them have already been to my website and know what they like. However, more importantly, I enjoy listening to their poems also. There are some schools who really promote poetry within the school, and you can see on the faces of the children that they love it. When they read their poems to me, you can see the light in their eyes and the smiles on their faces and that is what I like to see. One little boy last week was so excited when it came time for him to read his poem that he read it so quickly that we could hardly understand him, so he had to re-read it. I took a variety of poems into a local school last week. Some were fun poems and some descriptive poems – but if you ask the children “What poems do you like best?” the answer is always the same: “Fun Poems”. It is nice when you see the same children on a regular basis because they like to come to you with ideas for your poems, eg: “I have made a picture for you” and “Could you write me a poem about my picture?”
During the last year I have also been involved with them with “Show and Tell”. The children have to bring something from home and then tell a story about it, to encourage them to talk. A little boy said: “I haven’t brought what I want to talk about”. I asked the teacher if that was OK for him to talk but not show. She said: “Sam, why haven’t you brought something?” He answered: “Because I thought you wouldn’t like it.” It turned out to be a large spider called Fred. His father had told him to take his mini-beasts to the end of the garden and make a mini-beast park for them, which he did. So he explained, with eyes shining, just how he had made it, making various tunnels etc. He told us that he had left Fred in the mini-beast park with the others for the day. “Oh!” I said. “Do you think there will be any mini-beasts left there when you get home?” Sam smiled and reassured me that Fred was a friendly spider, but I added that even friendly spiders get hungry. This prompted me to write my poem “Tragedy at Mini-Beastie Hall”, which, despite the title, the children found rather funny. The family lived at Beastington and the area of their garden where the mini-beast park was, was called “Beasts-R-You” – “it was a section of the garden – well, a mini-beastie zoo.” The insects moved into Mini-Beastie Hall and everything went fine until Fred the spider arrived at their party with his computer and offered to teach them how to surf the web, but after dark. You must read the story for more details. Sam was delighted with the story when I read the poem the next week.
It’s surprising what children laugh at. They like funny names (so I’m told), so my little characters such as “Mickledy-Me” and “The Woggaldy-Woo” are popular. Children like stories where pompous characters get paid back for their pomposity at the end of the story, and the same goes for greedy characters. Witches, fairies, dragons, sea maidens – all of these are still popular, but, just mention people from space and their eyes light up. When I read them my poem “Three Little Aliens”, in which they are brought to school for the Show and Tell part of the lesson, they said: “Oh, goodee”. They also like dinosaurs and spooks – and these feature in my two most recent poems which have been tried and tested at our recent literary festival. The idea of having a Halloween Party at Spooks Palace was good, and the menu was quite acceptable - beetle juice and spiders legs – and the idea of witches, ghosts and skeletons tripping down the street caused some laughter. The idea of dancing with the ghosts whilst the lanterns swayed also caused some laughter. They like a bit of cruelty to the characters they think deserve it. The thought of putting the pesky witch called Mabel in a cage and laughing her, cruel though we might think this is, makes them laugh.
The character which they tell me they like most of all is Mickledy-Me, the invisible friend. I have had to write sequels to this poem. So at the literature festival I was asked: “What has Mickledy-Me been doing?” “Well, he went to the Queen’s garden party last summer, and did you hear on the news what had happened?” Oh yes, they had. She’d lost her handbag and someone had locked the corgies in a cupboard. I’m not sure about the last thing, but they wanted to believe it, and - - - - I learned quite a few things more about his goings-on. With an invisible friend, anything can happen.
So, if you are writing for children, you may write beautiful poems, spiritual poems and especially write about animals, (for that is the number one subject), but do make the poems fun for them. It isn’t easy to write for children, but you do need to meet them often and get feedback, and you do need to listen to what they tell you and hear what they write. You will soon know the subjects dear to their little hearts.
Copyright 2006