Paper Soup - Poetry Activity for Toddlers

In September and October I am running a series of Saturday sessions at Stratford Circus for 2-4 year olds, focusing on poetry and the spoken word. Whilst I have worked with children of this age on a number of occasions, this will be my first experience leading sessions (as opposed to just giving little performances). Obviously I am not expecting them to write anything themselves, but I do want them to be active, involved and stimulated by poetry.

The following idea is not entirely original, but I have adapted it and made it my own. It is really very simple. Each child gets a large sheet of coloured paper, which they have to rip up into pieces. Each child then takes it in turns to come to the front and put the paper in a big bowl to make a 'soup'. They can stir it with a spoon. Whilst each child is going this, the group recites this rhyme, along with the appropriate actions:

Paper Soup

Paper soup

Paper soup

Rip the pieces up

Paper soup

Paper soup

Put them in a cup

Paper soup

Paper soup

Stir it round and round

Paper soup

Paper soup

Listen to the sound

Paper soup

Paper soup

Have a little taste

Paper soup

Paper soup

Pull a funny face!

Finally, each child grabs a handful of the 'soup' and sticks the pieces onto paper plates, to make their own yummy meal. (Just don't let them eat it, for God's sake!)

Workshop Idea: An Enjoyability of Collective Nouns

Animal House (published in My Grandpa's Beard)

  

There’s an ARMY of HERRINGS in my bath

And a BEVY of OTTERS too

There’s a BOOGLE of WEASELS

Under my easel

And an IMPLAUSIBILITY of GNUS.

There’s a LAMENTATION of SWANS

And a MURMERATION of STARLINGS

And a MURDER of CROWS

In my sink.

There’s a FLAMBOYANCE of FLAMINGOS

In my underwear drawer,

Which is rather odd, I think!

There’s  PARCEL of PENGUINS in my fridge

And a SHIVER of SHARKS in my bowl,

There’s  a MOB of MEERKATS under the rug

Along with a LABOUR of MOLES.

There’s a PARLIAMENT of OWLS

And a PANDEMONIUM of PARROTS

And a KNOB of TOADS

On my pillow,

And in my boxes

There’s  SKULK of FOXES

And a HOOVER of ARMADILLOS.

Lying in my bed

So still they’re almost dead

There’s a LAZINESS of SLOTHS,

And if you open up my shed

They’ll be flying round your head –

A UNIVERSE of MOTHS!

I’ve a BIKE of WASPS in my trousers,

Nibbling at my bottom,

While a COALITION of CHEETAHS

Chase a DAZZLE of ZEBRAS

Down the hall – I think they got ‘em!

And into my toilet I dare not go –

There’s an OBSTINACY of BUFFALO...

A COMMITTEE of VULTURES circles the ceiling

And if you want to know how I’m really feeling,

Well, I like my varied company

But the thing I most like to do

is to go down the road

and to look at the CROWD of HUMANS

In the zoo.

Believe it or not, every single collective noun in the above poem is real! However, we can see that collective nouns are very peculiar things, and it might be a fun activity to make up your own. Start by picking a theme. My poem uses animals; the poem below by Joe Coelho talks about swimming pools:

Next, write a list of items associated with your selected theme. For example, if the theme was 'school', you might write 'children', 'teachers', 'books', 'classrooms' and 'wall displays'. Finally, for each item, make up a collective noun! These could either be bizarre words that sound like nothing else in the English language, like some of those in my poem, or real words that are somehow related to what they are talking about, like those in Joe's. Here are some of my examples:

A yell of children

A stress of teachers

A knowledge of books

A rainbow of wall displays

A clock-watch of lessons

A yum of lunches

A canon of footballs

A whirligig of games

A growl of arguments

A kaleidoscope of friends

Poetry and Philosophy

Relax. This blog post will not be as pretentious as its title implies. I will not discuss philosophy or poetry very much. What I will do is talk a little bit about how they both pertain to my life.

When I talk of 'philosophy' I am not talking about navel-gazing, contemplating the heavens or musing on one's place in the world; I am talking about the hardcore academic subject I spent five years studying before becoming a poet. And whilst this academic subject purports to study some of the most interesting things humankind could hope to turns its mind to, the reality is that academic philosophy, at least in its Ango-American 'analytic' guise, is a quagmire of pedantry and endlessly tiresome epicycles of futile argumentation about issues that, in a very deep sense that is nonetheless almost impossible to articulate, are profoundly unimportant (some branches of ethics aside). And I might add that philosophy postgrads, with a few honourable exceptions, are generally some of the most boring people one could ever hope to meet.

At any rate, such was my experience of the subject. After getting a 1st class degree from UCL (for which I sacrificed any kind of social life beyond the first year), I spent two years as a postgraduate at Oxford University, where I was nearly paralysed with crippling bouts of Imposter Syndrome (which still occasionally afflicts me as a poet). But I passed my degree, and can now put 'Oxon' after my name should I ever so desire, although I can't for the life of me think of a point at which doing so would be necessary or even helpful.

Why do I mention this? Well, I am currently undertaking a second MA, this time in Education Studies and Creative Writing. What I am finding is that, despite the disdain expressed above, my studies in philosophy have been helpful. Whilst I came to find the subject itself profoundly uninteresting, I am enjoying bringing the academic skills I acquired through studying it to bear on a subject I do find genuinely interesting and important. The careful, methodical construction of an argument can be extremely satisfying, and I am enjoying once again using pretentious words like 'adumbrate', and 'pertaining to'. What I don't miss are those silly little backwards E's and those upside-down A's (anyone familiar with logic will know what I'm on about), and people who think arguing about the meaning of words, or rigorously defining every word before using it (which, believe me, many philosophy students do during every conversation, academic or otherwise), constitutes the best use of one's time.

Of course all this is largely a matter of personal taste. I suppose that, when it comes down to it, the issues beloved of academic philosophers are, objectively, neither more nor less important than those enjoyed by any other academic. And all academics are probably tiresomely nerdy about their chosen fields of study. I would anticipate that someone might object to me by saying that poems about yabbing, or missing one's bottom, or not exactly profound. One might even be tempted to view such items as unworthy of someone with my academic qualifications. Such is the view of my parents, which I have written about here. I try not to see things that way.

So what is the point of this blog post? I'm not sure really. I am not writing in the Philosophical Review. I'm not sure if it really needs a point.

Workshop Idea - One Word Poems

One of the great things about poems, I think, is that they can be extremely short. A fun idea for a writing warm up, or even for a short workshop session, is to come up with one word poems. Yes, such a thing can be done! Here is one by Roger Stevens, published in his recent anthology Off By Heart, in which - ahem - I also have a poem:

A Poem That Despite Being Only One Word Long, Can Sometimes Make a Crowd be Quiet, and can be Easily Understood by a Baby

shhhhh....

Now of course the poems isn't really only one word, because it has an elaborate title. Calling it a 'one-word poem' is therefore a sort of joke. The workshop challenge, then, is to think of a word to serve as your one-word poem, and to give it a long, interesting title. Here are some of my own examples:

A Poem That My Mum and Dad Recite When My Sister And I Ask Them If We Can Get a Puppy

No. 

A Poem That, For Some Reason, Can Make Rather Immature Children, and Some Adults, Laugh

Bottom. 

The trick here is not simply to parrot a dictionary definition of the word; it is to think of a funny, interesting way in which that word plays a part in your life. It might help if you provide a list of potential words for children to use as their one-word poems. Here is a quick sample, just off the top of my head:

- Yes
- No
- Maybe
- Quiet!
- Ouch
- Yum
- Wah!

Day and Night - Workshop Idea (& Poem) for KS2/3

Day and Night

In the day

I haul myself from the warmth of my sheets

and yawn as I take a shower.

I have a quick breakfast, then put

my poems into my backpack.

On my way to school I worry about

whether the kids will like me;

whether the new poem I’ve written

will make them laugh,

and whether the teacher

will invite me back.

Some kids laugh

and some kids don’t.

On my way back home I think about

all the things I could have done

differently. I bury my mind

in the pages of a book,

eat supper and go to bed.

At night

I shower in laughter and money.

I have a thousand doughnuts

for breakfast, and never get fat.

Every poem I write brings joy

to children across the globe,

and causes countries

to lay down their arms.

Teachers queue twice

around the world

to invite me to their schools.

At night there is no such thing

as regret.

Every cloud is the hug of a parent.

Every thunderclap is a round of applause,

and every drop of rain

is a funny joke. 

.........................
Firstly, I hope you enjoyed this poem. When writing it I faced something of a dilemma: should I write the poem from 'my' point of view, or from the point of view of a child? Much of my poetry takes place from the latter point of view, or at least blurs the distinction, but the above poem very much adopts the perspective of a fully-grown, adult poet. The 'I' of the above poem is not a child, or pseudo-child. I'm sure this is a very important issue within the realm of children's poetry, and children's literature generally, but I'm not sure whether here is the best place to discuss it. What I would say is that I hope the resultant sense of 'authenticity' acts as a spur for the children's own writing. What I would like to do now is to outline an idea for a poetry workshop, based on some of the ideas in my poem.

• Warm Up

Each student writes a 'timeline' of a typical day. They can include the events that occur, and how they feel about them. Each student could aim to jot down five such events, which span the space between getting up and going to bed.

• Poem Sharing and Discussion

Share my poem 'Night and Day' (above) with the students. Discuss the difference between what happens 'in the day' and what happens 'at night'. Is one true and the other false? What kind of language have I used towards the end of the poem?

• Poem Writing

Using the ideas generated in the warm up, students write their own 'Night and Day' poems. The key idea here is to contrast reality with the imagination; to juxtapose the mundane with the fantastical, and to reify the dreams, ambitions and desires that the students have. I hope this exercise shows that poetry can encompass both the real and the imaginary, and can blur and question the distinction between the two. As ever, enjoy!

The Nasty Box - workshop idea for all ages

I have lost count of the number of times I've visited schools to discover that the children have been using Kit Wright's famous poem 'The Magic Box' as a model for their own writing. The poem is very well suited to this, filled as it is with rich imagery wrapped up in a scaffold that is very easy and enjoyable to mimic. But why not go for something a little more original, or at least give children the option of going in a different direction? Instead of a magic box filled with wonder, why not have a 'nasty box' filled with bad stuff? This has the advantage of maintaining the helpful scaffolding whilst at the same time fostering a sense of mischievousness in subverting the original piece. 

In my poem 'The Nasty Box' below, I have maintained Wright's structure, whilst changing the nature of the box. 

The Nasty Box

I will put in the box

the bark of a dog, keeping me awake at night,

lava from the mouth of an angry volcano

the graze on my knee from when I fell over.

I will put in the box

a snowball filled with bits of dirt,

a fizzy drink that’s gone warm and flat,

a stomach ache and a trip to the doctor.

I will put in my box

the deafening taunts of a thousand bullies,

a snarling teacher with sharpened fangs,

the red crosses on my failed homework.

My box is fashioned from decaying bark

with fungus on the lid and ants in the corner.

Its hinges are the knuckles terrible ogres.

I shall bury my box

deep in the bowels of a dense forest

where, like a lost tribe,

it will never be discovered.

As ever, I'd start by getting children to write a list of bad things, perhaps memories, people they find annoying, or things they find ugly, distasteful or scary. I would then introduce Wright's poem, and compare it with my own above, before letting the children loose on their own pieces. 

Please note that there are many famous poems that can be subverted in this way. Another great example could be Adrian Henri's poem 'Love Is'. Why not get children to write a poem called 'Hate Is'. I personally find the latter much more fun!

Poetry as Escapism

There are many ways people deal with depression. Anyone familiar with my poetry and other writing, or indeed my style of performing, teaching and workshop leading, might be hard pressed to find signs that I have suffered from, and to varying degrees continue to suffer from, depression. There are a handful of places that might yield some clues: I acknowledged it in one of my first blog posts, and some of my poems contain a dark edge that I hope distinguishes me from the plethora of exclusively humorous and whimsical children's poets, but the truth is that signs of my condition may not be obvious to those who know me primarily in my capacity as a poet.

One of the reasons for this is because, working as a self-employed freelancer, I haven't really had a 'boss' or 'colleagues' for whom this information is necessary. On the thankfully very rare occasions when I have been unable to undertake an assignment, I have been able to pass this off as being down to some other more mundane, less awkward form of illness. In any case, I almost always find that getting out of the house and my mind and into a school to work with children helps my mood. If people see me at all they almost always see me on a 'good' day, and working as a peripatetic poet (how's that for alliteration!) means that I seldom spend long enough in any one place to be anything other than the high-octane entertainer those places have paid for. Which suits me well, I think.

Another reason is that, the aforementioned dark edge aside, much of my poetry is light-hearted, even a little bit silly. Since dabbling with confessional, angst-ridden poetry as a teenager - which yielded some of the most truly execrable writing ever produced by humankind, I should add - I have tended to shy away from writing anything that hits me too close to the bone. There are again exceptions, notably a piece I have used with teenagers, which is reprinted at the end of this blog entry, and this piece, which ended up getting the most 'likes' out of anything I've ever posted on Facebook. (Because that is of course the most important way in which popularity is measured nowadays.)

I have tended to avoid writing overtly about feeling depressed in part because, when writing is used primarily for catharsis, it is very easy to write badly. Or it is easy for me, anyway. But a more important reason, a reason that strikes firmly at the heart of who I am as a poet, is because I tend to view poetry, both in terms of writing and consuming, as a kind of escapism. This means that depression is integral to who I am as a poet, but that this manifests itself in ways that are not obvious. When I am feeling really low, for example, I usually find that it serves me better to write a funny poem about Dracula than it does to reflect on the injustices I perceive myself to suffer. Similarly, I almost always find watching stand-up comedy, or a poet like John Hegley or Tim Key, preferable to watching poets who wear their hearts on their sleeves (some of whom, like Shane Koyczan, I find emotionally unbearable in their intensity). Absolutely none of this is to elevate one mode of expression above any other. None of this is to pass judgment on what other people enjoy or find worthwhile; it is not even to say that I don't myself see the often transformative worth in a lot of the more hard-hitting, confessional life-writing that people call 'Spoken Word'. It is simply to say that, in my capacity as a depressive,  it is fun children's poetry that really hits at my core. It is that which gets me out of bed (and occasionally keeps me out). And coming up with a nifty piece of alliteration, finding interesting synonyms, playing about with rhyme-schemes, finding a funny punchline - these are the things that, to borrow a phrase from my teenage musings, 'salve my wounded soul'. As does writing about it in this blog entry.

Thanks for your time.

What It’s Like To Get Out Of Bed When You’re Depressed

It’s the weight of the room

pressing down on your chest, and heaviness

holding hostages in your throat.

It’s light charging under your blinds

like an invading army, occupying you,

and birds cursing the day

with their cynical songs.

It’s vomit in your stomach and shit in your brain.

It’s bullying voices telling you to get up,

and a crate of leaden limbs

unable to obey.

It’s your mum crying outside your room, wondering

what she’s done wrong; your dad

slamming the door on his way to work.

It’s hot acid shampoo in the shower,

searing into your head and shoulders,

and old clothes hung like sackcloth

across your scarecrow bones.

It’s standing in a field with

the day an open chasm before you.

It’s having arms with no joints,

So you can’t get the fallen fruit