The other week I had the pleasure of working with pupils at Finton House School. I was especially gratified to learn that, prior to my visit, the teachers and students had had a look around my website. I love it when this happens - it really helps to build a sense of excitement and anticipation. In preparation for the visit, both the Lower School and the Upper School produced 'chain poems', inspired by my poems Inside, which you can read here. As you will be able to see, the aim of the poem is to create a chain, that ultimately leads in a kind of circle back to where it started. The pupils of Finton House worked in groups to produce their chain poems, using the first two lines of my poem as a starting point. Here is my favourite one, created by groups of children at the Lower School. My understanding is that each child wrote a line of the poem (i.e. a 'link' in the 'chain'), and then passed it on to a another child to create another line that follows on. You will hopefully be able to see what I mean:
‘Inside’ by children at Finton House Lower School
Inside the child a heart is beating
Inside the heart a poem is sleeping
Inside the poem the characters are peeking
Inside the characters laughter is leaking
Inside the laughter the children are giggling
Inside the children memories are wriggling
Inside the memories a dream is hiding
Inside the dream a unicorn is jumping
Inside the unicorn the moonlight is glistening
Inside the moonlight a star is singing
Inside the star the sun is shining
Inside the sun the fire is swirling
Inside the the fire the flames were whirling
Inside the flames the light was turning
Inside the light a child is dreaming
Inside the child a heart is beating
Good, huh! Even better, both the Upper School and the Lower School turned their poems into beautiful booklets, which you can see here (click on the words to see the booklet):
I think you will agree that both the pupils and staff at Finton House should be extremely proud of themselves. Why not have a go at writing your own chain poems? It's super fun!
