I’ve heard
it said, although I can’t remember by whom, that most people aren’t interested
in poetry because most poetry isn’t interested in people. A glance through
publications such as Poetry Review
seems to confirm that a lot of poetry doesn’t particular care to appeal to those
of us without academic qualifications.
Sometimes,
however, poetry can go too far the other way, striving after universal appeal
at the expense of subtlety and nuance. Slams, for example, are full of this kind
of stuff. I try to strike a balance. Perhaps not very successfully – I haven’t
been published in Poetry Review and I
didn’t do especially well in the handful of slams I’ve been to. Be this as it may, I want to talk about attempting to straddle an apparent dichotomy
in that aspect of poetry that interests me most – children’s poetry.
I think that
younger children especially often like poetry because the sorts of poems they are
exposed to are funny and not especially ‘difficult to get’. The danger here is
that such poems can get too silly, perhaps relying heavily on toilet or ‘yuck’
humour. I don’t think there is anything drastically wrong with this: children
laughing and having fun is an inherently good thing. What is undoubtedly true though
is that this is not the sort of stuff that is going to inculcate a lasting
appreciation for poetry and language; children, after all, grow out of toilet
humour and silliness quite quickly!
But I think
that, perhaps in a conscious attempt to avoid this, some children’s poets can
stray too far from the whimsy and fun that makes a lot of children like poetry.
At its worst children’s poetry can get terribly didactic, ramming ‘morals’ or
‘lessons’ down children’s throats. Some children’s poets also write in a way
that is not easy to understand about ephemera that stray far from the realities
of everyday life. No doubt this is due to a worthy desire not to patronise
children or shield them from the ‘difficult’ side of poetry, but let these
poets not kid themselves: some bookish, clever children may like what they have
to offer, but most children, like most adults when it comes to Poetry Review, will not be interested.
So the ideal
is this: write in a way that is fun and accessible, but in a way that is not overly
silly or patronising. Write such that children who are not necessarily top of
their literacy lessons will be engaged and enthused, but such that genuinely
clever and interesting things are done with words. I am not saying that I’ve come remotely close
to achieving these things, but it is something I strive towards.
