Poetry and Art – Poetry Roundabout

A Poem on a Kite – Craft and Poetry

Posted on June 8, 2020June 29, 2020 by Liz Brownlee

Robert Couse-Baker, Flikr creative commons

Today I am going to show you how to write a poem about a kite, and then write your poem on a kite to hang from your ceiling or window!

This is a kite poem I have written in the past:

The Kite

I am the emperor of wind

my world is sky and sun

air surrounds me, guides me

moves me so we are one

my red skin glows like fire

I am kite; part silk, part light

my tail patterns in circles

in loops and swoops of flight

watch me become the wind

and the wind take shape in me

it is my soul, my life, my all

it sets my spirit free

In your poem, YOU are the kite. You will be thinking about what it would be like to be a kite flying in the sky, being moved by the wind.

Your first line will be I am a kite – in your second line, you will say where or how you fly. You will use a word for sound in this description. Think of the sounds a kite will hear up in the sky. It could be the sound of insects (what noise do they make?), or the wind, or aeroplanes, whatever sound you think the sun makes (make one up!), or the sound of the people down below, watching.

Your sound words could use onomatopoeia. This word is said: ono-matter-pee-a. No, I can’t spell it either, I had to look it up! These are words that SOUND like what they are describing: ‘The kite swished‘, ‘the wind buffeted the kite’. The words in bold describe the sound, and sound like the sound.

I have imagined what sound the air is making and put that:

I am a kite

I fly through the singing air

Your third line will describe what you (the kite) look like. You will use a metaphor – a metaphor describes something AS something else. ‘The kite is a spiral of colours.’

I am a diamond

Your fourth line will describe what you are doing, using a verb (a doing word).

shining under

Your fifth line will describe the sky. I thought about what was in the sky as well as the kite – you could think about the colours in the sky, or the wind, or a smell, or clouds, but I remembered that even when it is daytime, the stars are still up there in the sky.

a sky of invisible stars

Your sixth and seventh lines will describe the wind with a simile (when you say something is ‘like’ something else) or a metaphor (when you say something ‘is’ something else). Think what the wind is like for the kite – some words which might help you are: friend, helper, song, home, life, fun, dancing partner, hero, path, direction, pattern.

The wind is like

a mother to me

Your eighth and ninth lines will describe how the wind helps the kite.

helping me to fly

and guiding me back home.

Yay! You’ve finished your poem. Read it out – can you hear anywhere where you could improve it, perhaps by taking out a word, putting one in, or changing a word for a better word? Does your poem make sense? Can you change it a little so it flows well?

This is mine, written out:

I am a kite

I fly through the singing air

I am a diamond

shining under

a sky of invisible stars

the wind is like

a mother to me

helping me to fly

and guiding me home.

You can write your poem neatly onto a piece of card or paper and hang it on the wall, you could draw a kite to go with it, or you can display it as a kite. Below are the instructions to do that.

First, you need to make your poem into a diamond shape. This is why you have an odd number of lines, one line has to be the middle. First of all you need to write your poem as I have below – so that the lines get steadily longer until the middle line, (probably line 5, which will be the longest line) and then shorter again. You will have to play with the words, adding some words from the lines above or below to get the shape correct. If it won’t work, then add words, or take some away. When you have finished, read your poem out to check you have not added a word in a line and still have it in the line above, for example – this is easy to do!

I am

a kite,

I fly through

the singing air. I am

a diamond, shining under

a sky of invisible stars. The wind

is like a mother to me,

helping me to fly

and guiding

me back

home.

Notice that in line 5, where I have added two words from the line below, I have shown where the line finishes by a full stop, to also show where the next line begins. You could also put in a comma.

When you have your shape right, all you have to do is draw a diamond on an A5 sheet of paper or card. You could do it on A4 if your have a lot of words and are worried about fitting them in!

How to draw a diamond shape! Measure and mark half way along the top and bottom of your paper, and half way down each side.

Join the marks with a ruler and pencil!

Then cut the kite out and place it on another piece of plain paper. Use the kite as a template to draw around.

Draw a line across the middle of your rough paper kite and then, again roughly, divide each half with 5 lines. You may need an adult to help with this. Then write your poem in on your rough piece of paper. Work out how to write the lines to fit your kite properly. It might take a while to do this! You may need to change where some of the words go. Don’t worry, you can’t get it wrong, as long as all your poem is on your kite!

Then put your kite next to the rough copy and copy your poem across. Notice I have tried out two pens to see which one would be the right thickness to write my poem in. I wrote the poem on the good kite in pencil again to guide my pen words. Then I rubbed out the pencil when it was dry.

Then it is time to add a tail to the kite. I had an old pipe-cleaner which I twisted into a spiral, but you can use lengths of ribbon, coloured string, wool, anything that looks like a kite tail and which you can attach to your kite! I attached the pipe-cleaner with sticky tape and then a staple.

Then a made a tiny bow from parcel ribbon to put on top of the staple – you could use wool or string or even cut out a bow out of magazine paper or coloured paper to stick there – but make sure it will not hide any of your words.

Thread a thick needle with some string, wool, embroidery thread or ribbon, knot the end and push it through near the edge (not too near the edge!) of your kite, a little way down the top side of the kite, either on the right or left. I put my hole between the third and fourth lines. This means your kite will hang at a jaunty angle.

And then you can hang it up!

Hope you enjoy yourself!

I am so pleased to say that red bubble at Farfield School, @SchoolFarfield have written some wonderful poems by following this idea! Look here they are, flying high!

Poetry Art and Craft

Words Grow on Trees – Art and Poetry Idea from Sue Hardy-Dawson

Posted on June 5, 2020 by Liz Brownlee

Yay! I’m very happy to have a guest art and poetry blog post here from the lovely Sue Hardy-Dawson!

Words Grow on Trees

Why not write and decorate your own word tree? Here’s how:

First of all you might start with a list of tree related words – I sometimes write my list as a mind map.

I have put a few ideas in mine, I bet you can think of lots more things the parts of the tree look, feel, sound and smell like.

I started mine with, ‘Words grow on trees’, because we’re making a word tree. Also when I was small and used to ask for more of my share of something grownups often used to say ‘Do you think they grow on trees?’ which if it was new shoes or a biscuit I thought was funny.

The first verse is about the roots. You will have different ideas so your roots will be made of different things.

Words grow on trees

from knotted roots

like coiled ropes

round ancient bones.

The next verse is about the trunk, I thought about the texture, things it reminded me of.

My tree has a fat trunk

bark, leathery and cracked

as elephant skin.

The next verse is about the branches, I thought about them being held up to the sky like arms, you will have your own ideas.

Long, strong branches

that can hold the moon.

The last verse is about the leaves. Mine are spring leaves, soft, green and new but yours might be autumn leaves and different colours or thick dark shady ones. I wanted my poem to end with words as it was a word tree and I thought about trees whispering words. Again it’s your poem so there are no wrong ideas.

Spring brings new buds

of soft green leaves

everyone of them soon

whispering different words.

Once you have written your poem, you are ready to make your word tree. Here’s my finished poem and this is what you do next.

Words Grow on Trees

Words grow on trees

from knotted roots

like coiled ropes

round ancient bones.

My tree has a fat trunk,

bark, leathery and cracked

as elephant skin.

Long, strong branches

that can hold the moon.

Spring brings new buds

of soft green leaves.

Everyone of them soon

whispering different words.

So here’s how to write out your poem, in the shape of a tree, starting with the roots at the bottom, so you read it up instead of down. It’s probably easier to show you so here is a picture:

Now the really good thing about trees is that you can’t really go wrong, so if as I did you have a word that sticks out it just looks like a twig. Basically, as long as it’s sort of thin in the middle, is wider at the root and has some branches it’s going to look like a tree.

Once you have written your poem in a tree shape, you are ready to put the leaves on. You could just draw them of course but I did mine with finger prints in paint. It works best with two or more colours and I would suggest you have another spare sheet of paper nearby to dab your finger on first so it’s not too thick and drippy.

Here’s how I built mine up:

So here’s my tree and I think it looks quite nice like that and of course you might just want to leave it there.

However I thought it might be even nicer to cut it out and stick it onto a different colour background and add some grass and other bits. So that’s what I did with mine and here it is:

Thank you so much Sue for that fabulous idea!

Painting Poems by Julie Anna Douglas.

Julie Anna’s first book is a bright and positive collection full of promise, which is beautifully illustrated in a variety of styles. At its heart is the idea that creativity sparks creativity, and this is something I believe in passionately – at the end are a number of ideas to help you write your own poems, produce your own artwork and models, and interact with the poems in the book. You can buy Painting Poems here.

Here is my favourite from the book:

Whiskers

Whiskers appears in my garden each morning

just as I’m leaving for school.

Bright eyes flicker through the lavender

full of the wisdom of the woods.

Black-tipped ears glisten in the sunlight,

searching for whispers on the breeze.

Elegant, graceful, poised.

Standing still and serene.

We pause for a golden moment

shared in silence.

Frozen in time

until we blink back to life.

Last Week to Enter Never Such Innocence Poetry (and art and songs) Competition

Never Such Innocence want to encourage young people to engage with their shared history and heritage, and create their own cultural and artistic legacy to mark the centenary of the First World War.

Together: A UK-German Centenary Project

During this final year of the centenary they are embarking on a youth-centred UK-German creative arts project, inviting schools and educational groups to participate in their project, Together, which provides the opportunity for young people aged 9-16 from the UK and Germany to work in partnership, or independently, to produce poetry, art or songs that are inspired by our shared history: inviting the custodians of the future to draw on the events of the First World War and create messages of hope and unity.

Details here: Never Such Innocence