Hello! I’m Liz Brownlee, National Poetry Day Ambassador! What’s on the poetry roundabout? There are quickie poetry writing ideas for children, teachers, parents and librarians, crafty poetry projects, all types of poems including funny poems, empathy poems, and of course, poem videos. Use the menus or search for them on the right. There are also interviews with poets, poetry book reviews and poetry competitions. Thank you so much to @mrs_darl teacher for the window to pop us in, and @chriswhitepoet for my little cartoon me and Lola! Welcome!
The Children’s Bookshow: The Joy of Poetry
Over the last few weeks the team at The Children’s Bookshow have been thinking a lot about the joy of poetry. One of the Directors, Siân Williams, has been pulling poetry collections down from her shelves and revisiting all of the marvellous poets they have worked with over the years, and some with whom they hope to work in the near future. Throughout November they are focusing on a different poet every week, giving you an overview of their life and work as well as some videos of them reading and performing their poetry.
They’ve announced three poets of the week – John Agard, Michael Rosen and Grace Nichols – with Kit Wright and Kwame Alexander to follow.
You can see the posts and more videos here!
Reading Realm’s New Poetry App!
Exciting news! This week sees the launch of an excellent new iPad app. from Reading Realm – THE POETRY REALM!
The Poetry Realm contains 230 poems on a wide range of subjects – the Romans, Ancient Egyptians, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends, Crime and Punishment, Feelings… the list goes on!
This excellent resource also includes:
– Audio recordings
– Discussion and comprehension links
– Creative writing opportunities
– Spelling, grammar and punctuation games
– Reading challenges
– Cross-curricular links
And all searchable by topic or age group!
If you haven’t downloaded Reading Realm to your school’s iPads, now is the time to do so!
#NationalKindnessDay – a Poem
Yes, it’s National Kindness Day – so here’s a poem I prepared a little while ago. This poem will be in my new book coming out next May in Mental Health Week.
If you’d like to buy one of my books, you can do it from this page on my bookshop – I will receive a small amount of money for each book bought, which will help feed us hopefully at this time of no income!
Amazing Animal Shape Poems Book!
Are you wondering about Christmas presents?
Do you buy books from Amazon? Something wonderful has happened for authors during lockdown. Well, it’s not all good. Children’s authors can no longer visit schools, and a large part, the major part of their small-anyway-income is gone. The other part is books sales – but you may be surprised to learn that authors earn very little from their books’ sales. Pennies. And sometimes book sales earn them nothing, because they were given a (very) modest advance and the books do not make as much as the advance and so the author never receives Royalties.
But now a new online bookshop has opened – one that not only gives a portion of the cover price to independent bookshops, but if an author signs up, a proportion of the sale to the author. This could be life-changing in that we might get to eat this Christmas. AND the books are discounted!
What could be better? Buying a brilliant book for a loved one, safe in the knowledge none of the money went to Amazon, and some of the money went to the person who spent 6 months night and day making shapes from poems for it…
If you buy it through this link, that is! Buy Apes to Zebras here!
Here are samples from the book:
The Poetry Guide: Trevor Millum and Bernard Young
If you are a teacher or a librarian, or even a poet looking for ideas of how to teach poetry to classes or groups, this is the book for you!
Both Trevor and Bernard are very experienced, both as excellent poets and as educators working with young people.
The book is laid out well, the subjects of chapters are pertinent and useful, any instructions are clear and easy to follow – all with examples and sample poems. There are sections on every type of question you may have from ‘How to do poetry with pre-readers/writers’, to ‘How to use audio/video as an aid’, and other things covered include ‘performance’, ‘reading aloud’, ‘music and poetry’, ‘imagery, similes and metaphors’ and even ‘how to answer difficult questions’!
I really recommend this! Published by Troika, you can buy it here.
Colette Hiller and Tor Freeman: The B on Your Thumb Review
This is such an excellent idea – in fact it is in my ideas book so jolly miffed I haven’t ever put it forward! Here are 60 engaging and funny poems ‘to boost reading and spelling’. Each poem is a rhyme that explains how to remember how to spell a word, or how to use the correct form of a homophone – for instance one poem deals with how to remember when to use to, too or two.
Using plenty of humour, repetition and playfulness, the rhymes really do work and I can imagine this being a very useful resource in schools and for parents; I can also imagine young people actually enjoying learning how and when to use these words!
Tor Freeman’s illustrations are wonderfully colourful, clear, and make a fabulous pairing with these clever, educational poems.
Excellent, highly recommended. I hope these rhymes enter every teacher’s lexicon! Published by Francis Lincoln , you can buy the book here.
Colin West: Barmy Ballads
When my children were little, picture books and poems by Colin West were great favourites; along with books by David McKee and Quentin Blake, Colin’s books are the ones I can remember fondly. The words I had fun reading on multiple occasions if not every day, the ones the children laughed at time after time, the pictures they enjoyed poring over.
So it felt surreal when Colin sent me his latest manuscript, Barmy Ballads, to read. Colin is truly masterly at combining fantastic nonsense with his hilarious images, and to sum up, this is what I sent for the back cover – Barmy, brilliant and absurd – Colin West‘s mastery of witty improbabilities in rhyme, combined with the quirky charm of his illustrations, makes this book irresistible.
You can buy it here.
Book Chat: Reading With Your Child
The Open University (OU) has launched Book Chat: Reading with your Child, three short films and supporting materials to help parents, families and carers read books conversationally and creatively to children. Working with Macmillan Children’s Books, the films use a selection of their picture books and a poetry collection to support families with reading to different ages of children.
You may have noticed that the poetry collection is The Same Inside, by me, Roger Stevens and Matt Goodfellow, which we are thrilled to see.
The film above is read by Professor Teresa Cremin, who leads the OU’s Reading for Pleasure programme.
If you are an educator, librarian, parent or other person interested in supporting young people develop the reading habit., there is an OU Webinar you may be interested in viewing. The Book Chat crew, Teresa Cremin, Ben Harris and Richard Charlesworth will be joined by the children’s author Smriti Hall (TBC) and Rumenar Atkar, a mum and primary school librarian. The session will include research and practice insights, strategies to enrich informal book talk at home and school, and book recommendations that get everyone talking. The Webinar takes place Tuesday 20 October, 20:00 – 21:00. and can be found here.
Zaro Weil – the CLiPPA Award Winner 2020 for Cherry Moon!
Zaro Weil lives in an old farm on a little hill in southern France, and her poetry for children has appeared in many anthologies. She has written several books including a book of children’s poetry, Mud, Moon and Me, published by Orchard Books, UK and Houghton Mifflin, USA, which can be bought here. Her book Firecrackers, Troika, illustrated by Jo Riddell, can be bought here, and her lovely book, Cherry Moon, is the 2020 CLiPPA Award Winner, and deservedly so, and available here! Zaro’s website is here.
Zaro kindly sent me this wonderful poem from the book a while ago for a poetry feast:
.
HIDE AND SEEK
I decided to play a game with quiet
hide and seek
my turn
I slipped into the woods
looking for quiet
instead
a cacophony of forest-crackle
a hullabaloo of beast-babel
sprang towards me while
a tweedledum of pandemonium
circled above
it was a free-for-all
and even the sun
jangled copper
between the leaves
so much for the forest
I went to the sea
searching for quiet
but the waves trumpeted
a rumbling ruckus
a crash of crinkle-crests while
squarking gulls sky-dived into
wind-trembled sea and
tiny sea things zig-zagged
underfoot as a medley of
fat green seaweed
slapped the sand
non-stop non-stop
so much for the sea
but then I turned
and quiet tagged me
I stopped
forest stopped
sea stopped
I found quiet
it must have been hiding
the whole time
inside my words
inside of me
.
© Zaro Weil
Congratulations, Zaro and Troika Books!!
.
Anonymous Alpha Animals by Luke, Age 8
I was sent this absolutely wonderful poem by Luke, aged 8, today.
This is fabulous writing, well done, Luke!
National Poetry Day 2020 – Alternative Vision of a Panda
How do you view pandas? As chubby cute bears that chomp bamboo all day? Well, prepare to be surprised:
National Poetry Day 2020 – Bright Spark by Michaela Morgan
This video was filmed for National Poetry Day 2015 – but is all about VISION as well as light. Bright Spark, written by Michaela Morgan and performed by Eleanor Trapp in John Lewis’ lighting department – thanks to John Lewis, Cribbs Causeway, Bristol!
See it Like a Poet – National Poetry Day 2020
Here’s a poem for NPD about a narwhal – a type of whale, with a long twisted horn, which is actually a tooth. Scientists think people finding these horns on the seashore may have sparked myths about unicorns! There is a poem video – and a picture poem of it, below, by me, taken from Apes to Zebras.
And here it is in the shape poem book:
Another Vision Poem for National Poetry Day
This poem is about a leafy sea dragon!
National Poetry Day: Skylark
Yay, still National Poetry Day! Here is a poem inspired by the Skylark’s War by Hilary McKay. A vision in the darkness.
The Twitter waves are buzzing today with poems, competitions, videos and poetry fun and so pop in if you can!
