the Schoolbard
poems to get kids putting pen to paper
‘Baking’ by Phoebe Boswall
With children in the classroom, we often have the tendency to shy away from the topic of death. There will always be one who has recently lost a grandparent, sometimes another who has lost a parent and occasionally one who has lost a sibling. As teachers, our instinct is to tread carefully and not to ‘open up old wounds’. Safer to avoid the issue altogether and stick to something innocuous or jovial. This attitude, whilst understandable, does children a disservice. It places the teacher in the position of protector from reality, when, in fact, our role is better served in helping children to recognise reality and come to terms with it. By resisting the temptation to place a cotton wool barrier between a child and his or her emotions, teachers of poetry can in fact help children to facilitate the process of healthy exploration - as opposed to instinctive repression - of deep-seated feelings. As we have already seen in the example of Charlie’s ‘Dad’, written in response to Simon Armitage’s ‘Not the Furniture Game’, the unforeseeable connection that he was able to make between the source poem and his own personal situation, which he had hitherto refrained from discussing at all at school, resulted not only in stunning poetry but in a happier, more confident child. One of the prime concerns of children for whom life is difficult at home, whether it be due to illness, separation, death or any other reason, is how to handle what those at school do and do not know. Worrying about how friends and teachers will react upon finding out what had previously only been known within the family can weigh heavily upon children’s minds, especially when the full picture is maybe not known to the child. Children may not be fully aware of what their parents have discussed privately or what they have shared with the school, all of which leaves them in a vulnerable position, unsure of what can and cannot be said to whom. The fear of that which they cannot control at home is potentially heightened by the further lack of control over what is known outside of the home. Using poetry that deals with the kind of difficult issues that children are likely to face as the inspiration for writing has the power give them a voice that they can control. They can choose to explore their own thoughts and express them either in a directly autobiographical style, as in Phoebe Boswall’s ‘Baking’, or write more anonymously, wrapping a fiction around the hidden truth as a layer of protection. With the above thoughts in mind, I decided to use ‘Baking’ when I was asked by The Poetry Society to write lesson plans on two of their fifteen Foyle Young Poets winners of 2012. Dealing with death in poetry for children is often seen as too morbid an undertaking, likely to result in writing that drips with too much teenage angst and alienates the reader. Phoebe Boswall’s poem, however, is far from morbid, exuding joy and life that modifies the underlying sadness quite beautifully. I like the vivid sensuality of interlinked images that reproduce the poet’s memory with Proustian precision. The second-person subject of the poem comes to life through each highly focused snapshot and, even though the reader never explicitly sees the full person, we come to know them intimately through the medium of the poet’s own memory. Such is the richness of the description that we can create our own imaginary ‘you’ to fill in the gaps, with our own specific memories substituting those that don’t quite match. For me, my own maternal grandmother seems to be looking back at me from between the lines. It is her striped apron that I can see hanging on the back of the kitchen door, except in blue rather than red. It feels somehow impolite to do this: to invade the poet’s memory and alter things to suit our own. But this is precisely what good poetry always makes the reader do. What’s more, children are particularly adept at doing this. In my experience, given a poem with even the merest glimmer of recognisable common ground, they are capable of riding on the back of poet’s memory in order to re-access their own, as in these examples by Year 8 children: Playing The feel of fur reminds me of you. Old coats, still in the cupboard. Smoke still lingers in the room Toys lay on the table. I always play with them Different trinkets you collected. The helicopterhum shimmers in my mind Times you made me smile, laugh You played with me, played with words. I pick up your lighter, the cold pearlplastic shell, A rainbow of your tricks, your magic, your fun, The tickle against my arms, your cashmere hands. I tried to hold on to them, I grasped them tight But they still slipped away. Your velvety hands. I remember mine fitted around your thumb Safe, wrapped, clasping your fingers. My hands are too big now: they don’t reach anymore. I have to let go of you I have to let go. Betty, aged 12 Eulogy I never knew you well. The childish times Overshadowed by older children. I never cherished those times Never understood their importance. A hug at Christmas, Racing through your frosted firs Shying from the cold. I did that with you sometimes. Ran up and down the staircases Up one, down the other Laughing High on roast pork and new potatoes. When the news came I was eating a mince pie. They told me that you had ‘Gone to a better place’. I wasn’t hungry anymore. Lucy, aged 13 Chacarera Summer afternoons, a vibrant wave in the air. Traffic buzzes outside, and the Buenos Aires humidity is so thick It might as well be honey. All the kitchen windows are open and you Do a mixture of bouncing and dancing to your precious Chacarera, along with your singing. My silly questions, like ‘What is the difference between tango and chacarera?’ You look shocked, then start laughing. ‘Silly boy, you know nothing about folklore’. We laugh, and meanwhile you prepare the pastry. You flounce about, adding onion to mincemeat. You comment on how River beat Boca, triumphantly Boasting about the fifty-first minute goal. Then you remind me that only River fans eat in this household. The empanadas are ready, and you stuff the load of Pastry-covered meat in the oven. The smell hypnotises me. But now I’m here, and not there. Who’s feeding my happiness now? Jacques, aged 12 I found that these young writers responded well to the suggestion that they use the second person to address the subject directly, as in ‘Baking’. It freed them up not to be constrained by what I think of as the third person’s all-seeing eye, which tends to push the writer towards an excess of visual description. Using ‘you’ seemed to enable them to access memories triggered by sound, smell, taste and touch more easily, resulting in poetry which provides a satisfying and truer balance of all the senses. Whilst the children were in the process of drafting these poems, we used ‘Baking’ as the source text for another video adaptation to accompany our 2013 poetry evening. The children recorded each other reciting lines from the poem directly to the camera against a plain white backdrop. They then worked in groups to edit the lines together to make a complete version of the poem. It was interesting to note how this process encouraged them to listen closely to the quality of each recording and to compare this with the visual effect, affording importance to both. From this, they were able to make decisions as to which pieces of footage to include and which ones to reject. The only other imagery that we created all together was a simple photo of an apron hanging on a peg. This image was used to ‘bookend’ the poem. Other than that, the video effects, transitions and sound quality were managed by the children themselves. At the end of the editing process, we watched the various finished films and the children voted for their favourite to be shown at the poetry evening. What impressed me more than anything was the care with which the children had created their montages, paying heed to punctuation and the weight of particular words, ensuring that the poem flowed beautifully, as intended by the poet. They were meticulous about removing overly long pauses and balancing the differences in volume and tone of the numerous recorded voices. This project serves to demonstrate how, if time and resources allow, letting children record and edit poetry can take the understanding of the words and ideas to a whole new level.
0 Comments
‘The Everyday Hymn’ by Clare Carlile
The arrival of the anthology of winning poems from The Poetry Society’s annual Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award always attracts a considerable flurry of excitement amongst our Year 7 and 8 pupils. The competition is open to 11 to 18 year olds throughout the English-speaking world and in recent years, each competition has attracted in excess of 15,000 entries from roughly 7,000 budding poets. This is their main opportunity to showcase their talents and gain public recognition for their own poetry. Over the years, St John’s has had three entrants amongst the 85 highly commended poets, but we have yet to make it into the prestigious anthology of 15 winning poems. There is, therefore, always a particular fascination finding out what makes a winning poem. Alongside the usual platitudes about taking part being more important than winning, I always say to my pupils that, whether judging another writer’s poetry or trying to perfect one’s own, there is, of course, no given formula. Good poems just feel right. They will have something to say to any reader, but that will be something subtly different for each and every one of them. Change as little as a single word and the entire weight, meaning or effect of the poem can be radically altered, either for better or for worse. This is not generally what children want to hear. They feel safe if they know that there is a system that they can use, a way to ensure that they achieve the desired result. My saying to them that I simply don’t know the way to produce the perfect poem - indeed, that I don’t believe that there can possibly be such a thing - amounts to my asking them to take a huge leap of faith. They need to have the courage to write and rewrite until not only they are happy with their words, but they have gone as far as they can towards what they want to say. Their writing then needs a reader and, only if it speaks with similar clarity to that reader as well, will they have succeeded in their aim of writing ‘good’ poetry. As Alan Bennett puts it so memorably in his 2004 play The History Boys: “The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours.” Clare Carlile’s ‘The Everyday Hymn’ succeeds in reaching out that hand of recognition to the reader. We all have our own ‘small pleasures’ like those described in the poem, each one simultaneously familiar to anybody and yet utterly personal to us. When we read the poem together in class, the children instantly connected with the idea of finding pleasure in opening a can or cracking an egg. To bring these sensual experiences into even closer focus, we created a video performance of the poem for the Year 8 poetry evening. Interwoven with a montage of the lines recited to camera by numerous voices, we had footage that the children had previously recorded themselves of each other breaking eggs, opening cans and making each other laugh. Simple, inexpensive and quick enough to record, but the effect that the actual doing of the actions had on their subsequent performance of the lines was fascinating to observe. Their fresh memories of the actions somehow allowed them to inject the requisite sensuality into phrases such as ‘hiss/Of hydrogen’, ‘low crunch’ and ‘audible shake’. By actively partaking in the physical experiences described by Clare Carlile, the children had reawoken their senses to these simple acts and it helped them to access the hidden complexity of this deceptively simple poem. For ‘homework’, I asked the children to carry paper and a pencil around with them all weekend. They were to jot down any simple, everyday actions that they (or anyone else) did that gave them a moment of pleasure. There was no need for them to turn the notes into poetry at this stage: basic notes would be sufficient to trigger the memories later on. Lucy, aged 13, came back into school on the Monday with just two things: tying a ribbon and looking at the sky. She was disappointed on discovering that most of her friends had ten or more ideas to share. By limiting herself and showing discrimination, however, she had unwittingly allowed her two ideas to ‘ferment’ and the resulting poem is quite beautiful: Little Things Little things Like the tying of a ribbon The creamy cushioned folds soft against my skin The finishing touch to a gift, a bow in a child’s hair Or cloud watching The baking sun on your back Daydreaming as the daylight melts into the trees Lucy, aged 13 This is certainly one poetry writing activity in which the ‘less is more’ principle applies. Just as Clare Carlile has not distracted herself with the infinite possibilities of her original idea, but has focused instead on the quality of her three basic images, so Lucy has conveyed the full richness of her two ideas with the eye of a true poet. This exercise serves as a prime example of how useful it can be to ‘keep it simple, stupid’ when delving into the limitless world of remembering. Arthur, also aged 13, was more of a reluctant writer than Lucy. He complained that he was stuck and could not think of any ‘small pleasures’ to describe. I encouraged him instead to just think back to something he did last night. It didn’t need to stick in his mind as being particularly enjoyable, just the first thing that came back to his memory. “I didn’t do anything last night,” he grumbled, “except for my homework.” I persisted. Could he recall anything about doing his homework? Did he do it in a different place to where he normally would? Was there anything else going on at the same time? Could he smell anything cooking in the kitchen? “No. It was just normal.” “Did it take more time or less time to do than usual?” “More time. But only because I couldn’t find a pen.” “How did you get hold of one in the end?” “I went and found one in the kitchen drawer.” “Which drawer?” “The third one down.” “Well, there’s your poem,” I said. “The Third Drawer.” “But that’s rubbish, sir. There’s nothing special about a drawer...” Here’s what Arthur then came up with: The Third Drawer I remember the third drawer full of useless things Size six Allen keys Repellent for bees An unused bottle of factor five sun cream A McDonald’s figurine A used box of tissue An old Big Issue A rusty toy tractor Old tickets to X-Factor A light bulb that doesn’t work A baby picture of me with a smirk. Arthur (aged 13) Using the tried and tested listing approach, perhaps recalling encounters in younger years with Kit Wright’s ‘The Magic Box’ or Ian McMillan’s ‘Ten Things Found in a Wizard’s Pocket’, Arthur has stayed true to the simplicity of Carlile’s ‘The Everyday Hymn’ and given the reader a wonderfully clear and touching insight into his own world. The contents of the drawer - whether they were actually present or not - show us something of the inner workings of the young writer’s mind, his frame of reference. His original reluctance to write on this topic, which I suspect has much to do with not wanting to give away too much of his teenage self, has been overcome by diverting the focus onto something seemingly less referential to him personally. The end result, ironically, is all the more personal and revealing. ‘Not The Furniture Game’ by Simon Armitage
With another class, Luke Wright gave a reading of Simon Armitage’s ‘Not the Furniture Game’, in which a barrage of metaphors describe the poem’s protagonist from head to toe, all building up to a shocking climax when the focus shifts to a woman, described as a ‘chair tipped over backwards’ in an allusion to the poem’s title, who has, we suppose, been attacked or even murdered by her larger-than-life partner. This was certainly not the kind of poem that one might typically expect Year 7 children to be grappling with, but they responded with incredible maturity and insight, using the regularity of the structure together with the openness of the metaphorical possibilities to make profound statements about things that matter to them. The standout response was by Charlie, an unassuming Year 7 boy, who had never shown any particular inclination towards poetry and had previously struggled to find a voice in his creative writing in general. Requiring no further external input or assistance, he quietly got on with writing this: Dad His hair was icebergs clashing together His eyes were whirlpools pulling in ships And his bite was blacksmiths smashing steel His neck was a spear And his shoulders were tree trunks in the autumn His handshake was fire His elbows were knives blunted His shadow was a cumulonimbus His legs were steel doors His feet were bells ringing with every step His fingers were snipers His footprints were maps And his heart was a bus We were the sword that cut through his cancer. Charlie, aged 12 When we convened in the school hall for the final hour of Luke’s visit, during which the children were given the opportunity to read their poems aloud to the rest of the school, this was the one poem that stopped everyone in their tracks, pupils and teachers alike. I think it stands as proof of the cathartic effect of poetry on children, allowing them to access and publicly express emotions which they might otherwise be embarrassed or unwilling to share. Poetry, in common with other art forms, creates a protective bubble around its creator, letting them explore that which might be too challenging or awkward in the literal world. It enables them to revisit, dissect and rebuild complex memories in an effort both to discover the truth behind them and to render them more manageable. Seeing his words wield such power over an audience demonstrated to Charlie that this is a great poem. Entirely at his own initiative, he decided to enter ‘Dad’ for the 2015 Hippocrates Young Poets Award and was awarded an honorable mention by the judges. There can be no better proof that children have at their disposal, within their own memories, the material to convey a message that is relevant and profoundly meaningful to anyone and everyone. All that we, as teachers, need to do is to give them the means of sharing these memories. ‘Stansted’ by Luke Wright
Luke Wright paid St John’s College School a visit in September 2013 and this was one of the poems that he read aloud and workshopped with our Year 7 children. It was already a favourite of mine, the village of Stansted being where I have called home for the past five years. To hear it delivered in person, by the voice that owns these words, was a special experience both for me and the children and one that cannot be underestimated. Only the poet himself can imbue his words with the exact nuances of meaning that were originally intended. Only the poet can truly sense the images described and give them their full emotional resonance. The very best readers of poetry can, of course, bring poetry to life and can move the listener deeply, sometimes more so than the poet can. However, performers of other people’s words cannot overcome the fact that they were not there. Much of their skill will necessarily come down to inference, the ability to empathise and educated guesswork. As brilliant as they may be, those who read what they did not themselves write will always inevitably be missing something, however small, however intangible. For this reason, it is invaluable in the school context and beyond for audiences to be allowed to hear the poet reading his or her own work. Whether this be in person or via audiovisual media, the effect is profound and instantaneous. The children immediately identified with Luke’s poetic voice and the contrast in their reactions - from wild laughter to silent fascination in a matter of seconds - revealed just how fully they were engrossed and wanting not to miss a thing. ‘Stansted’ struck a particular chord because the situation described and its language both resonate perfectly with children of a certain age: “...whenever Dads were mentioned I’d say: My Dad was involved with ‘The Stansted Project.’ I’d say: My Dad was like the main boss. And on occasion, to proud, freckle-faced boys: Yeah, well, my Dad ... built Stansted Airport.” The familiar scenario of children boasting about their father’s achievements to hyperbolic extremes is one that all children have been witness to at some point and, importantly, when they are not in the company of adults. Even the simple use of the filler word ‘like’ really helps to gives the poem the feel of a dialogue between the poet and an audience who are on his wavelength. As English language specialist, Professor Clive Upton has noted: “Using "like" in this way is also about signalling membership of a club” Luke’s reading certainly helped the children to imagine themselves as part of his childhood ‘club’ and, having established common ground, he was then able to gain their full focus for all of the minutely observed ‘Dad’ details that fuel the switch to a more contemplative mode in the latter part of the poem: “And yet, I never really knew what he did. Not like I knew his mahogany trouser press, the brass bowl for his change and errant golf tees, the way his cheek felt cold when he came back from work, his black Mac’ jewelled with rain, smelling of trains and a faint whiff of the morning’s aftershave.” The children’s task was to reflect upon particular memories of a person that they know (or knew) well and to make notes on whatever details they could remember well, no matter how insignificant or silly they might seem now and out of context. Unlike the majority of the poetry activities that I myself tend to conduct with children, where sound and exchange of ideas are key, this one required time for silent reflection, so Luke encouraged the children to settle down to independent quiet working. It impressed me how long they were able to maintain this silent focus and write from memory, especially given the lack of specific scaffolding in the activity. From this, I learnt to what extent, given an excellent stimulus and the right atmosphere, children can produce an authentic response without the need for further input: Dad If you show me a briefcase Or let me hear the footsteps of your dark black shoes My mind would be transported back to the days When I would give you your famous Chocolate Orange at Christmas And then I wait eagerly for you to offer me a piece I can still hear the words No-point-crying-over-spilt-milk ringing through my ears I can still smell the strong scent of black coffee In the huge mug saying Danger! Man at Work Beatrice, aged 11 My Gran Buddhism: that’s what you make me think about, Always polite, never mean, never rude. Never boasting and always trying to do what’s right. When you moved house, We were given some of your things, And whenever I look round our house, I say: “Those are the matching chairs that you had meals on, That’s the grandfather clock that gave you the time, That’s the sofa that you read magazines on, That’s the desk that was covered in scattered around papers, That’s the lampshade that gave you light at night, They’re the plates that you had your vegetarian sausages on, There’s the cutlery that you cut up your roast potatoes with.” That’s how I remember you. Lucy, aged 11 My Sister She is a bloodthirsty mongoose Her tantrums a thunderstorm like no other Hacking me with her plastic sword She could out-rule Kim Jong Il All of us slaves of this notorious tyrant The thuds of her footsteps Spread fear across the kitchen Her Majesty the Queen with 5-a-day dress changes But she is my sister And that is why I put up with it Oscar, aged 11 |
AuthorSixteen years of teaching poetry to children have furnished me with a wealth of ideas. Do dip in and adapt any of these for your own lessons. Archives
April 2020
Categories
All
|