We are (non-rhyming) poets, and we're not cognisant of it
What I Do That's New is a series of articles in which poets share their trade secrets with the rest of us i.e. they describe aspects of what they do that is either innovative or just plain clever.
If you would like to feature in a future article in this series then contact feature editor Dermot Glennon dermot@writeoutloud.net
_________________________________________________
Here’s what I do: Along with primary school teacher Kate McGann, I take performance poetry into nurseries and primary schools. We go by the name of ‘We Are Poets!’ and deliver performances and workshops to children aged between 3 ??" 11.
A ‘usual’ day of ‘We Are Poets!’ will consist of two performances, each lasting for just under an hour, for KS1 and KS2 children followed by workshops in the afternoon. During the performance, I take on the role of proper posh, internationally renowned celebrity performance poet Penelope Page while Kate takes on the role of grubby street poet Gabby Mouth. We perform a range of poems within the context of a scripted show during which Penny and Gabby argue about who is the better poet and what exactly a poet should be.
We’ve described the show as ‘pantomime meets poetry’ and our characters have evolved accordingly; parts of the show are played entirely for laughs. I’ve also described the show as ‘the performance versus the page poetry debate for the under twelves’. The antagonism between the two characters is a microcosm of the whole ‘slam versus literary poetry’ argument that I have encountered myself as a slam poet. Penelope Page is a pretentious elitist monster (although her poetry is quite good!) who seems to think that she can dictate what poetry should be about and what poets should look like while claiming all of the glory for herself. Sound familiar? I think most performance poets have encountered that sort of prejudice before now haven’t they? At a very basic level, the message of the show is that poetry is for everyone and that you shouldn’t judge a book (or poet) by its cover. By the end of the show, after having listened to each other’s work, Gabby and Penny decide that they do actually like each other’s contrasting poems and that they are both poets.
Most of the poems in the show were written with the 2004 National Literacy Strategy in mind. Before writing the poems, I discussed with teacher Kate McGann the type of poetry that she would like to use as a teacher. With this in mind, I wrote a number of formal poems that would act as examples of some of the different styles required by the literacy strategy e.g. Limericks, narrative verse, villanelles, poems with repeated refrains and list poems to name a few. This may sound a little stifling, but I certainly didn’t let it hinder my imagination or creativity, and I make no apology for the fact that most of the poems in the show rhyme and take on a formal structure. I like this sort of poetry; it’s also easier to remember, which is a bonus when you’re performing from memory for the best part of an hour.
The whole point of what we do is to keep children switched on to words and poetry and for teachers to see that the fun that can be had with poetry can be built upon; poetry and rhyme are useful tools for literacy. On another note, I do recall being told by a maths teacher that children who have a good ear for rhythm and rhyme in poetry are usually better at maths.
We always like to bring a bit of mayhem into school especially seeing as poetry and writing are often thought of as dull. For workshops we take over the school hall, taking up to 60 pupils. We always ask them what they did and didn’t like about the show and are always keen to say that it’s fine to dislike things as long as you can give good reasons. Poems and poets come in all shapes and sizes, but sometimes you do have to concede that poetry is not everyone’s cup of tea, which is fine. If nothing else, we at least try to get children talking in a critical way about what they have seen and heard.
Because we’re always pushed for time and because what we do IS performance poetry we get children to work in groups for both the writing and performance; the teachers can then expand on what we’ve done in class if they want the children to write individually on the themes we introduce. Although it was never our intention, we have found that the workshops are a good exercise in team work, and teachers are often surprised to see some of their most timid pupils finding the confidence to stand up and perform their work for the rest of the group. We always do our best to encourage everyone and to accentuate the positive; we’re not there to assess the children ??" it’s our intention that they leave the workshop associating poetry, words and writing with having fun. It’s so easy for children to become switched off by writing and that really is tragic.
For KS1 children, the challenge of the workshops is to get children writing independently and working as a team so we keep it very simple. Action poems are always popular and they allow us to introduce verbs, simple rhymes and beats. Another one of our ‘greatest hits’ is ‘Everybody Everywhere Stomp Your Feet’ which is a very basic action poem that we also perform with a dance beat. This has proved a huge hit from nursery aged children right through to the year 10 group that we performed for as a one off at a local high school. I’ll grant you that it wasn’t the most challenging poem to write, but it’s a good ice breaker and also makes the point that a lot of poems are merely song lyrics. Sometimes it’s the removal of the word ‘poetry’ that is required to get children to entertain the idea that they can be poets too.
Everybody everywhere stomp your feet,
Wave your hands in the air if you like sweets,
Flap your wings like a bird that goes “Tweet tweet!”
Everybody everywhere stomp your feet!
Everybody everywhere bang a drum,
Everybody everywhere chew some gum,
Everybody everywhere wave to Mum,
Every body everywhere rub your tum.
(From Everybody Everywhere Stomp Your Feet by We Are Poets)
I think that a big problem with poetry is that it has a mystique about it; it even gets to the teachers, many of whom are terrified by the prospect of teaching the required units of poetry. By using a character like Gabby Mouth, we introduce the notion of ‘write about what you know’ which hopefully makes writing easier those who don’t perceive themselves to be talented or imaginative writers. During the show, Gabby points out that she can write about anything ‘in the whole wide, wild, wonderful world!’ and explain that she likes to write about things that happen to her such as her scabby knees. She then performs one of the most popular poems in the show, one that has become Gabby Mouth’s signature poem: ‘Scabby Knees!’ Penelope Page makes it quite clear that she doesn’t think that scabby knees are a suitable topic for poetry, but the children really relate to it.
Scabby knees! Scabby knees!
Can I pick them, can I please?
They’re so itchy, brown and scratchy,
Crusty, flaky and quite nasty,
Like burnt pastry on a pasty,
If I pick them Mum might catch me.
Chorus
Scabby knees! Scabby knees!
Can I pick them, can I please?
Can I scratch them, can I pick them?
Can I pull bits off and flick them?
(From Scabby knees by We Are Poets)
We have used this poem as a model for children to write and perform their own poems, something that was a requirement for year 5 in the 2004 national curriculum when we wrote the show. The curriculum has moved on and now features a unit specifically on performance poetry, so we have been able to put many of our poems to good use as models for writing. We also perform some of the poems with backing tracks which act as an added incentive for the children to perform; the girls usually want to add some dance moves, and the boys like to show off with a spot of break dancing and beat boxing! Like I said, it is PERFORMANCE poetry.
By way of a contrast to the arguably vulgar ‘Scabby Knees’ type of poetry, we also do a workshop based on a poem called ‘Memory Beach’ which is performed by Penelope Page.
At weekends, on holidays, in all sorts of weather,
With swimsuits and wellies we go to the beach,
With buckets of upside-down sand we build castles,
And dig moats around them that fill up with sea.
We gather dry starfish as brittle as biscuits,
Driftwood sandpapered and washed by the waves;
Pebbles, glass smooth, shaped by years in the ocean,
We sift through the flotsam for shells in shy coves.
(From Memory beach by We Are Poets)
When asked in the workshop whether they like this poem, a lot of the children say that they don’t because it’s ‘boring’ and not rude or funny, but it’s worth performing just to see the faces of the children who do enjoy a gentler type of poetry that takes them somewhere in their imaginations. To those children who dislike it, we set the challenge to write their own version of a poem about a beach, and in contrast to other workshops, tell them that they are completely free to write a poem of their choice. I recall one workshop where one year 5 boy wrote a number of wonderfully evocative haikus. I’m hopeless at haikus and so they were MUCH better than anything I could have written; they really were quite something. But of course we do still get a fair smattering of rap poems and gross out poetry, especially from the boys, but if it gets them writing and performing enthusiastically we feel that we’ve done our job.
It’s a bit cheesy, but, at the end of each workshop, after everyone has performed, we reiterate the fact that poets are merely people who write, and sometimes perform, poems. Because everyone finishes the workshop having done this, we make them all shout, ‘We Are Poets!’ at the top of their voices. I can honestly say that when we leave a school, the children are absolutely buzzing (whereas we’re exhausted) but it’s great when we’re driving out of the school car park and hear little voices chanting the poems that they’ve written or pointing at us shouting, “POETS!” Hopefully the experience will lead them and their teachers feeling a little less daunted by the big scary world of ‘poetry’.
http://www.writeoutloud.net/poets/helnthomas
