Poetry in Action at Pendoylan

A poetry workshop is an active event, especially with Year One! Here I am with the young poets at Pendoylan CIW Primary School, searching for inspiration,

starting small,

reaching for the heights,

and being proper authors.

I told them the story of Sion Cwilt, and then we wrote short poems about our own houses. Here are two of my favourites,

I don't know which I am more envious of, the pirate wallpaper and quilt, or the 4 cats and a rainbow unicorn!
To finish with we performed a story about Little Bo Peep. Here she is, talking to a cow about her lost sheep.

The children were fantastic. It was a great day.

Willy Wonka's Poetry Factory

Oh my goodness, an absolute gem of a day at St Nicholas Primary School in the Vale of Glamorgan, celebrating World Book Day with the whole school dressed up as book characters, and me telling stories and writing poems with everyone. I was dressed as a poet.

The staff at St Nicholas are enthusiastic about everything, even dressing up as Roald Dahl characters. Here they at the beginning of the day, and they all stayed in character until it was time to go home.

It was great going into classrooms filled with superheroes, princesses, Harry Potters, and other assorted literary characters.

I was asked to judge the World Book Day competitions, one for each class. I did this over lunchtime, helped by Willy Wonka and a golden ticket.

And pictured here after the giving of certificates and prizes,

Amazingly, considering all the excitement, the children produced really good poetry and imaginative work.

There are some lovely displays of work on the walls of St Nicholas School, and I was inspired by this picture. I am going to do a version of it using my wooden letterpress letters making exploding words.

This was another great day. I am so lucky.

Poetry with very young writers - the best fun.

Two schools today, to work with year 1 and 2 children, as part of the outreach for the Cardiff Children's Literature Festival. We were writing poetry, and using the great animal cartoons of Huw Aaron as a starting point.

 First, in Roath Park Primary, where we wrote about a pelican balancing a book on its beak, and other things too. A lot of alliteration followed.

I liked the above example because the pelican has a bendy boomerang, a slithering snake and a kicking kangaroo on its beak, and when the pelican sneezes, they slide off into the stars. I also like it because somewhere in the creative process the young poet obviously needed an energy boost and so took a big bite out of the top of the page!

Here are the children all holding their poems triumphantly aloft,

 This afternoon, to Herbert Thompson Infants, to write about a monkey eating lots of fruit and vegetables to help him with his reading,

This poem is great as it includes two languages! The monkey has a big green lettuce to help him read, and a juicy coch strawberry to help him be strong.

I asked the children to think what book the monkey might be reading, and they made up some titles, and put some illustrations on the pages of the book. The poem above had the monkey reading The Banana Book. In the picture below, the young writer had put some text, which I really liked.

 It is wonderful to see the very young writing poetry, putting their own imaginations and ideas into the frame I provide to produce very individual work. There really is nothing better! A selection of the poems produced today are going to be in an exhibition in Cardiff Central Library in April, and I am going to enjoy seeing the children's work again.

Many thanks to Louise Richards of Literature Wales who arranged the day and came to help with the poetry writing, and to the staff at both schools, who joined in with such enthusiasm and helped the young writers to produce great work.

The festival website is here http://www.cardiff.gov.uk/content.asp?nav=2,2869,6584
and Huw Aaron's website is here www.huwaaron.com

Poetry in Penarth - perfect!

A visit to the grand and stately Penarth Library this morning.

A lovely class of children came to the library, all the way from Fairfield School in Penarth. I told them some poems, and then asked them to be poets too. Here they are, all looking very studious,

writing poems, and then doing some illustration. There is a big display of work planned for their classroom! We finished with a grand reading of poetry, then I taught them my shark song, and ended by reading the very best picture book of all, Where The Wild Things Are. Many thanks to Julie Dutton at the Library for her hospitality.

After the children had headed off back to school, I went to Ikea and bought shelves for my print shed. Here I am, shortly after realising that the table I need to put my printing press on will fit into the car, but not if there is a driver in it,

A minor detail! Happy days.

Odysseus and the parquet floor

A mythological day in Ysgol Bryn Coch in Mold today. The year 5 classes are looking at Greek Myths, and I was asked to fit my poetry workshops in with that theme.

I took my childhood copy of Tales from the Odyssey with me.  I was given this book at the age of five, and I actually lived in the beautifully illustrated pages, and sailed with Odysseus. Looking at it before taking it to school today, I realised how well I know the pictures, and how deeply familiar the story is to me. I know the images and story better than my real childhood, my recollection of which which is a bit hazy, I think because all I did was read!

I'm lucky enough to have been a regular visitor to Ysgol Bryn Coch. The children are great writers, and soak up stories and ideas. The staff do that wonderfully generous thing of stepping back to let me take the workshop, and then supporting the children when they come to write. It's a real pleasure to be there.

And the parquet? Well, the long corridors and big rooms of the school have fabulous parquet floors! Perhaps not that fabulous, as some of the wooden pieces are a little loose, and so make a marvellous sound as you walk upon them! They are being replaced with better flooring, but I know it's a feature that has been commented on by other visiting writers and artists!

The poetry is the thing however, and finishing this great week of writing and presenting poetry in schools and libraries with such a special day makes me feel so fortunate.

World Book Day. Bicycles and banana splits.

An epic World Book Day, out with Paul Doyle of Neath Port Talbot Libraries.

We went to Ynysfach Primary School, where I was captured performing Peter Samson's poem "On My Bike' with a class. It's a lively poem, and leads to some fabulously strange and imaginative writing from the children, after we have all pretended there are pedals sticking out of our ears, of course.

Then in the afternoon to Blaengwrach Primary, where we had a break about halfway through the poetry workshop to devour a huge banana split!

Paul and I were given seats with all the children, and thoroughly enjoyed the fair trade dessert. I have to say this is the most unusual event I have ever attended during a school visit!

Here's Paul, in the background you can see a member of staff dressed as a giant banana.

It was a great day of laughter, imagination, and creating poetry.

A poet and a storyteller in the correct outfits

It is not often that I meet up with another poet or storyteller in a school, so today was a real treat. My visit to Gwenfo Primary School co-incided with that of a storyteller called Cath Little. As soon as we met, I realised we were actually dressed as a storyteller and a poet, and asked a member of staff to take a photo of us on my phone.

I hope you agree. I am so pleased about meeting Cath that I am not at all worried about my head looking too big in the photo, which is the thing I am usually concerned about.

A visit always causes some disruption to the school timtetable, and with two of us I think it did present a few challenges, but we were made very welcome.  I had a rampaging time writing poetry with two classes, and then in the afternoon went to Dinas Powis Library, where a lovely class of children and I enlivened the scholarly calm by singing my song The Very Sad Song of the Villainous Sharp-toothed Shark, and other literary delights.

Here's Cath's website.  www.cathlittle.co.uk

A very frivolous font. Letterpress in the kitchen.

I am not sure we will ever actually sit down to eat at the kitchen table again. My latest purchases from the print shop in Manchester are here, waiting to be cleaned, and then? Well my house is very small so they might just have to stay here!

I have a very busy week out and about being a poet in schools and libraries this week, so don't have time to play with my lovely new wooden and metal letter. However, while waiting for my toast to do its thing this morning, I quickly cleaned and photographed these wonderfully frivolous letters. I love the little flick on the exclamation mark. The whole thing is so exuberant. I am really looking forward to printing with it.  My father's initials are FX.

Luckily the toast took a little while, so I quickly picked out words from another tray of three small wooden fonts.

Wherefore art thou, pictured next to the foods that fuel my lodger and I. Bananas and peanut butter are a very excellent way to keep going!

St David's Day cat. Daffodils & the colour blue.

 I picked some daffodils from the garden to mark St David's Day. Flowers look lovely against the blue walls of my kitchen. The cats look good too. Here is Jack, ignoring a house full of soft furnishings, resting on the table.

And just keeping an eye on me in case I try to move him. However, I gave up trying to keep cats off the table a long time ago!

 Happy St David's Day.