Category Archives: poetry

Creative Writing Workshops

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I’m pleased to be offering these writing workshop sessions for 7-11 year olds next week at my favourite book shop, the All Good Bookshop in Turnpike Lane.

Each session will be different focusing on a topic that leads into a story or poem.
That means you can book one day or all four. Children don’t need to bring anything as paper and pencils will be provided. If you want to pack a snack for them, that’s fine just no nuts please.

Sessions last an hour from 10:30 to 11:30am Monday to Thursday.

I have been DBS checked.

You can book here: https://allgoodbookshop.co.uk/order-books-1/ols/products/7-11-creative-writing-workshop

Cool Poetry

Some sessions focused on poetry using a refrain about a friend who is an alien monster. The children produced some cool poetry.

Aurelia’s Poem
Aurelia’s Poem

Odd Bod

My friend is a little bit odd
He has the most unusual bod

His legs are so spindly and long
His face is black as soot
As for his hair
Well he just doesn’t care

My friend is a little bit odd
He has the most usual bod

He smells so bad
He has big ears
Eats so viciously
And out of his head
Comes antennas so big

AUREILA

My friend is a little bit odd
He has the most unusual bod

He was eating all the maths books at 9:54
Can’t show his head because it’s dusty
In a certain way
Because he’s old

My friend is a little bit odd
He has the most unusual bod

He is so bad at brushing his hair
He looks like a wild bear
He can’t bear it
He can’t say his prayers

TED

2022 and all that

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Well, 2022 brought a number of changes which impacted on what I write here. I have been submitting a new novel for consideration. But primarily, I have been writing a lot of prose-poetry. This has led me to the new outlet for my writing of Spoken Word.

What is Spoken Word?

Spoken word is when you perform any piece of writing to a group of people. It is often poetry but can be a story, monologue, or something else. It is quite flexible as to format.

Due to writing a lot of prose-poetry and sharing at my favourite writing group, I was encouraged to attend a Spoken Word night. I went along, sat, watched, then thought: I want to set up one of those. And where better than my favourite bookshop in my local area. So far they have been going well and I have been exposed to some great fresh writing that excites me and always leaves me thinking. Such a variety is on offer. All unique voices that should be heard.

Children love Spoken Word and enjoy writing poetry so it is a great thing to do for World Book Week. Why not start by enjoying watching some Michael Rosen, Benjamin Zephaniah, John Hegley, Kate Tempest, or Anthony Joseph?

As well as Spoken Word, I have been plotting and writing another one. I have changed my approach and audience for it. I’m venturing somewhere new. It is challenging and exciting. I’m trying to apply some of the approaches I use for my prose-poetry to the novel writing. I’m not sure it will work. Only time can tell.

What have you been doing?

Wild Words Festival 2022

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So Friday 3rd to Sunday 5th June is the Wild Words Festival in Cuffley, Hertforshire. I am on stage Friday at 4:30pm and I must say I am really looking forward to it.

I have been sifting through my children’s poems to find daft ones, silly ones, disgusting ones to share to warm the audience up before we get onto the serious business of wishes.

Wishes are so important to stories. Without them many things would not happen. Events would not take place and characters would not be motivated to do something. Of course, the problem with making a wish is that usually something goes wrong as Billy found out Wishbone Billy.

If you can make the festival, do say high and do let me know what you thought of my books if you bought them. I always love to find out from children what they think. If you can’t make the Wish Wonder you will probably find me hanging out in the festival’s bookshop buying more books when I really shouldn’t. I have so many to read already!

Anyway, whatever you are doing over the weekend don’t forget to take time to find a quiet space and make a wish. Maybe just a small one. You never know who might be listening.

Poem: Utopia City

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I will build in my city

green spires circling trees and grass
swallows nesting in the rooftops
fruit trees hanging from window baskets

I will build in my city

parks with hidden tunnels to secret places
cat cafes to sip tea and share a biscuit
floating platforms to dive from into the bluest water

I will build in my city

plastic free markets where food is free
warm beds to rest in spacious rooms
health care for all from birth to grave

I will build in my city

acceptance, tolerance and love
the friendly greetings of strangers
the kindly helping hands of neighbours

I will build in my city

me.

This came about because I have been thinking of my children and what will become of them in the future. I feel children have the power to make real change to the world. As you grow older, you can get stuck in your ways, and lose vision. Children are full of imagination and hope for the future.

POEM: Bookshop

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Quiet are the shelves
Time to let the words whisper.
Tomorrow they will be noisy.
Shouting stories at customers.
Protesting: buy me!
Medusa will leave you as a stone.
Transfixed before the shelves.
If only you had brought a shield.
But then, it is a bookshop.

This poem came about because I was in my favourite bookshop waiting for the end of day. It made me think of how quiet a bookshop must be at night and how each page of the books had a story to tell and wanted our attention.

POEM: Grandma is a fossil

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My grandma is a fossil
Or so I have been told
She lies upon her bed
With teeth mainly gold

She doesn’t move much
But lies gathering dust
As still as a great stone
With a lip of tea crust

Gonna be a scientist
Get a spade and dig her up
With a brush I’ll be careful
To push away the muck

My great fossil grandma
Would get me on the news
People would line up outside
Standing in their twos

This poem came about as I needed a poem about fossils. I remembered the phrase ‘Grandma is an old fossil’ so it got me thinking about how old people are similar to fossils and what could happen if you treated them as one. I composed this one in my heard driving home.

POEM: Darksiders

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Moon above
Sellotaped wings
Plastic fangs
Night kings
Little witches
In a line
Waiting for the clock
To chime
Bobbing apples
In a bowl
A sweet treat
Is your goal
Pumpkins with
Toothy grins
Light the path
Of the twins
Black cats
Furry spiders
Tickle the faces
Of the darksiders

This poem was inspired by the annual Hallowe’en celebrations in my road. Watching my children and neighbour’s kids get dressed up in homemade costumes to go Trick Or Treating. One of my favourite times of year, ushering in Autumn and dark nights.

POEM: Pants

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New pants are on the scene
Have you ever seen something so supreme?
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday’s best
With a label upon its crest
A symbol of the snuggly feel
That you get from a Sunday meal
Everything in its right place
Puts a smile upon your face
Jump to the left
Hop to the right
With these pants
I’m full of might
I can do anything
In red pants of glory

I got thinking of the time when I was young and we got new clothes. The excitement, particularly of new pants. Bigger pants. They seemed to symbolise growing in age and becoming an older boy.



Moment

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There is that sweet moment of the day when silence seems to descend and time holds still and even the bustle of a packed café remains unnoticed as you let your mind wander, take a turn down a path, untrodden, overgrown with branches forming a canopy of green, and as you wander you begin to notice the magical figures that flitter between the leaves, darting from flower to flower to add a sparkle of colour, and just ahead you glimpse a white steed, a unicorn, drinking from a brook as an elf plays a lullaby on a panpipe, an it is at these moments you paint a scene, craft a character and place them, give them words to say and a task to do, a quest to strive after, to reach for like the words you seek to place on a page, a phrase of imagination, and then you pause for a moment, look around, and realise where you are, in that café, surrounded by people.

This came about when wondering what to write. It had been a while since I wrote something new as I had been spending my time editing a book of mine ready for submission so the creative muscle was rusty. And whilst sat there in the open with a coffee nearby, it reminded me of all those times when time stood still as I wrote, how it could take you places and how a good piece of writing could also take its reader places. So I wrote about that moment.

POEM: Contentment

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Ball of contentment
sweet dreaming of warm log fires
and a little mouse

This poem came about because I was trying out different poetry forms. I like poems with clear structures that constrain you but at the same time free you as you don’t have to worry about how many stanzas you are going to use, or what rhyme pattern you are going to go to battle with. This poem is obviously about my cat and how content he looked settle on my lap before a winter’s fire.