A was an apple pie B bit it. C cut it. D dealt it. … and so on The rhyme goes back at least to the eighteenth century and has always intrigued me -all those verbs, all those things to be done with an apple pie. Sandy Brownjohn suggests the alphabet as a manageable frame … Continue reading A was an Apple Pie
Sometimes you can have lots of ideas for poems and stories but it’s hard to write them all down. It may be hard to hold that long pencil. You may not be able to form all the letters. You may not know how to spell words. And it can be exhausting to have to think … Continue reading Writing it down
Here is a video which we must share with you. A perfect poetic collaboration between the wonderful Neil Gaiman (writer and Goodwill Ambassador) and the UN Refugee Agency UK. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAHEQ-KiDI4&feature=emb_logo So what do yo need to be warm? Write your own list. What do you physically need? What do you mentally need to feel warmth? … Continue reading What you need to be warm
In his poem, [little tree] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47304/little-tree, e e cummings imagines the spangles that sleep all year in a dark box dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine, the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads Today, we are thinking of spangles from the year. You can write about things from the year … Continue reading Spangles
In our last post we thought about ways of naming the landscape and parts of the landscape. Here is aa nice frame that you could use to put them to use. Here are some lines from a poem by Ian Macmillan about the walk to school: Down Barking-dog lane past the street with the boat … Continue reading Routes
It is nearly November 5th. In England at least, there are usually bonfires and fireworks around that time. Let’s really think about the sound of it all. It is dark when we set off fireworks, so maybe we notice the sounds more. Here is the beginning of a list poem by Mary O’Neill: The sound … Continue reading Sound of fire
… I am…… over the moon under a cloud on top of the world kinda blue walking on air happy as the cat who got the cream like a bear with a sore head broken-hearted cheesed off bored to tears like a fish out of water like a cat on hot bricks a bit hot under … Continue reading mixed feelings…
This is the last post inspired by the Scraps book for a while. Lois Ehlert has lots of collections - Mexican tin toys, Inuit ice fishing decoys, tiny dolls from South America. What collections do you have? I have a collection of boxes and one of mechanical toys, a collection of birds, a collection of …. I … Continue reading Collections
accidentally broke a teacup – reminds me how good it feels to break things Ishikawa Takuboku Japanese poem translated by Carl Sesar I found this poem by accident and it reminded me, also, how good - and how bad – it can be to break things. When I was a child, I quite often broke … Continue reading accidentally
Many of you have been writing about your day to day life for the last few months. You may have poems, lists, observations. Now is the time to put those to use. Kettle’s Yard Gallery has ut out a call for Lockdown Letters. They would like you to write a one page letter telling them … Continue reading Lockdown Letters
Writing Box 