A Visit to 'The Rainbow Room' at Bawnmore Infant School, Rugby

Yesterday morning, I was asked to speak to Year 1 (Herons and Robins) at Bawnmore Infant School in Rugby. The school has just built a large new extension for special events of this kind, known as The Rainbow Room, and I read some poems there and spoke to the Year 1 children about writing poems (ages 5 - 6).

Questions from the children included:

Q: 'How do you make a poem?'

A: With plenty of glue, scraps of old paper and glitter.

(Giggling from the kids, who apparently don't believe me!)

Seriously though, I sit down with maybe one word or a possible first line in my head, and try to build a new poem around that little spark.

and

Q: 'Do your poems rhyme, and if so, how do you think of the rhyme?'

A: Sometimes my poems rhyme in the middle of the line instead of at the end, and sometimes they only half-rhyme.

I come up with the rhymes by going through all the obvious rhymes until I come to the less obvious ones, which I prefer. The less obvious rhymes tend to take poems in a more interesting direction ...

Then I read some of my own poems to the children, including 'Watermelon Seeds' and 'I Want to be an Explorer'. One of the teachers very kindly asked for a copy of 'Watermelon Seeds' for the Bawnmore School website. So I thought I'd reproduce it here as well.

Watermelon Seeds

If I eat watermelon seeds
will they grow
into watermelon trees?

Will they grow in my tummy
and make me feel funny?

Will my face turn red
with a watermelon head?

Will I splish and splosh
and swish and swosh

wherever I walk
with my watermelon talk?

I think I'll leave
my watermelon seeds

but I might eat one -
just for FUN!

Some Quick Tips for Writing Poems

Recently, I've been asked to produce a few tips on 'How To Write Poetry'.

That's another social role for a Poet Laureate: spreading the word about poetry as widely as possible. It's rather like being an ambassador (though without the posh dinners, perhaps fortunately for my waistline) where what I say reflects on poetry as a whole. So I always try to give the same good advice I was given as a beginner.

1. Be yourself.
2. Keep things simple.
3. Rewrite everything.
4. Speak your poem aloud as you write.
5. Make sure the line-breaks fall where you either pause naturally or for emphasis.
6. Only write about things that really matter to you.

Over the next month or maybe longer, I'll be trying a series of online workshop exercises at my other blog, Raw Light, chiefly aimed at those with some experience of writing poetry but who are perhaps still unpublished in book form.

If you'd like to try your hand at a poetry exercise or two over there, I'd be happy to discuss the results with you.

Don't forget, you can still send poems to me here or leave them in the Comment box below, for possible future publication on this blog.