I took a poetry workshop at the Storylines Hui in October with about 30 children’s authors. It was fast-speed fun! We spent 90 minutes playing with words.
I loved the hui – so many highlights but what a treat to do workshops with Kate De Goldi and Joy Cowley and catch up with all my friends in the children’s book world.
I got the writers to send in some poems, even though, for most of them, poetry is NOT what they usually do. I think they are word-sparkingly good and I just love the energy that sparks from their sounds and images and surprise!
Just the thing to say out loud in the rain!
from Gavin Bishop (who has the most amazing new book (Aotearoa A New Zealand Story) which I will review soon):
Mishap
Tongue and groove dripped ginger beer
onto the bench-top, onto the floor.
Like a guinea pig to the door, I slid,
like a pig through the door – the dripping kitchen door.
Window View
The Alps zig-zag between the frame.
The foot-hills scramble across the glass.
Looking down now, with kahu eyes, the city jives beneath my gaze.
Sun Shower
The sunshine is awash with water.
A blue raincoat flaps in light.
Sparrows spray aside as my daughter splashes by,
on her hydroponic bike.
from Stephanie Mayne (who has excellent poems in A Treasury of NZ Poetry reissued this month):
In My Pocket.
A blade of grass, a rusty nail
Marbles blue as a peacock’s tail.
Pale white shells, and out of reach
Sand, from swimming at the beach.
Half bus ticket, scrunched up note
(Hard to read what the writer wrote!)
Leaf I liked, old cough lolly
One glass eye from my sister’s dolly.
Half a biscuit, apple core
Yellow crumbs and ants galore.
Soft grey feather, cicada case
Fidget spinner? No more space!
from Melinda Szymanik (who wrote the completely amazing A Winter’s Day in 1939 among other excellent things):
Water’s for Ducks
Sun’s out
Birds try
Bird bath
Clouds come
Rain drips
Slow fills
Bath, spills
Clouds go
Sun’s out
Drips dry
Birds try
Bird bath
In Your Pocket
In your pocket
Are five pink
Shrink-wrapped sausages
Wriggling worms
In close white
Knitted tight
On knuckled digits
Hand in glove
In your pocket
Here. In School
I went to work
A school visit, close to home
And because I am polite
Not rude
I put my phone on silent
At morning tea
Messages are always checked
And this time,
This time
The message was different
“Is your boy home sick?” they asked
Just checking
Because he’s not at school.
I’d seen him off that morning
Uniformed, lunch packed, back pack hoisted.
Heart sick.
I felt heart sick
My boy was not in school
As he should be
Not in school
The message was different
Had I heard it right?
At lunch
The message was different
They had not heard him
Right?
When he said “here”
In school.
from Heather Haylock whose first picture book is to be published by Penguin Random House next year (Granny McFlitter the Champion Knitter – the current Gavin Bishop Award book, illustrated by Lael Chisholm):
River Fog
Low and slow, the dampness creeping.
Hid beneath, the river weeping.
Dark and deep, moving, masking,
underneath, the dragon dancing.
Pocket
My pocket left home this morning,
empty.
Full of possibilities.
My pocket came home
bulging with shame.
Two detention slips.
Another teacher’s note.
Grades too far down the alphabet.
My pocket, my friend,
hid my shame.
Until washing day.
From Kerin Casey who is busy writing children’s stories:
Griffin’s Hug
Wiry warm arms
Wrap tight around my neck
Squeezing love in
Wringing forgiveness
Unconditional
All-encompassing
Snug as a bug in a rug
Griffin’s hug
Humid
This soggy day of bedraggled entanglements
Drips and slips
Through my melting fingers
Sticky and limp
Deflated
Defeated
In My Pocket
In my pocket is a small round stone
Sea green
Warm heart
Whipped smooth by sand on a cold surf beach
Foam flying
Waves smashing
Found, weighed, then tossed by a friendly hand
Moves on
Reconsiders
Returns and seeks it out, desperate
Sea green
Warm heart
Smooths a gnarled thumb across its surface
And thinks of me
