… is a poem by Craig Raine. It’s a list poem. You could write one like it. I imagine you will have plenty of your own ideas. It begins kike this: Here is your balloon. Heart-shaped, hard with helium, filled from an iron cigar. It has more creases than your baby sister’s arm. Be careful. … Continue reading 51 ways to lose a balloon …
The poet, Alice Oswald, often places walking at the centre of her writing. She walks the distance of the rivers she has written about – the Rover Dart, the Severn – and she walks in the lanes around her Devon home. Last week, when asked what she had been doing during this time of enforced isolation, … Continue reading Magnifying glass
The artist, Richard Long, makes walking an art form. He documents the walks he takes in words and photographs. He often builds structures or carries stones from place to place, leaving then at points along the way. He once walked from the west to the east coast of England, picking up a stone from the … Continue reading Walk with a preposition
Today is National Writing Day in the UK. It is a day dreamt up by First Story. The idea is that this is a day when everyone, adults and children, should write together, and have fun writing. Every year there is a theme. This year it is “One Day…” That is a great start to a story, … Continue reading National Writing Day 2020
There is no colour palette like nature's colour palette. The colours of nature provide us with the perfect opportunity to fine-tune our observational skills and create our own colour charts. You could explore your local area and make colour charts using photographs or real specimens. What about a colour chart for the school field or … Continue reading Colours of Nature
Using a first person narrative, this beautiful picture book works it way through the seasons telling its readers what is special about trees throughout the year. The pages also hold snippets of information which link to the main text. Although it is not technically part of the Nature Storybooks series by Walker Books, it follows … Continue reading The Things That I Love about Trees
Many of us walk the same route every day, it might be the walk to school and back, a trip to the corner shop or the regular dog walk. We may not always take the same route, but we may always go to the same place. The Dutch artist, herman de vries walks in a … Continue reading Walk maps
Walking plays an important part in my writing life. I often draft poems and stories in my head as I am walking. There is something about the rhythm of feet on the earth and eyes looking at the passing scenes that really is helpful. So you could just go for a walk and see what … Continue reading Walk for Writing
If you're not yet familiar with the nature writing of Robert Macfarlane then you should get to know it. Macfarlane is a genius at combining two of my favourite things: nature and words. Not just in prose form but he is also a serious collector of lesser-known words for landscapes and the natural world. In … Continue reading Nature’s words
Keeping a record of what we see around us needs only a few minutes each day. When you look back you can remember all the things that you have learned about the plants and creatures that surround us. In the late eighteenth century Gilbert White kept a Naturalist’s Journal and we can still learn from … Continue reading Timothy the Tortoise
Writing Box 