Thinking Caps On Please ...

Hi everyone. Brilliant Young Writer Group last Saturday.  Considering it was the first Saturday of the Half Term, I was delighted that 10 youngsters came along.  We were looking at I Wish poems and how they can be varied.  It is an American poetry form I think, but the Young Writers soon cottoned on and were coming up with ideas of their own.  One brave young lady attempted a poem with a rhyming word at the end of every line, making a pretty good job of it too.   Others soon realised that such poems are an excellent vehicle to make a particular point, such as an aversion to the colour pink, which came from one of the girls rather than one of the boys!  All in all, it was a very successful session and a big well done to everyone for giving it their best shot.  The assignment set was to create a brand new I Wish poem, preferably with a theme to it, and any brought it for marking will of course count towards their next Certificate.  And talking of Certificates, well done to Tyler who was awarded his Rainbow last week.  He has been a member for just under a year so to achieve this in such a short space of time is testament to his hard work, so well done, Tyler.

I have also set the young writers a challenge and that is to come up with a title for the poetry leaflet we will be putting together, so get your thinking caps on everyone.  We want something short and snappy (like 'Word Magic' for example) which is specific to poetry so if anyone has any ideas, please bring them along and if need be, we will put them to the vote.

The next session is on Saturday 3rd March  and not the 24th as originally planned, which means of course that there will be two sessions in a row since the next scheduled session would then be 10th March.  I apologise for any inconvenience this may cause you all but it is out of my hands and something I could not avoid; so please don't turn up on 24th because I am afraid I will not be there.

One last thing before I shoot off, just a quick reminder that all poems featured in our leaflet will earn its author a Special Award certificate and, due to limited space, I need short poems, in order to fit in as many as I can.

See you on 3rd March, then.

Introducing I WISH poems

Hello everyone. Very good Young Writer session last Saturday with Poetry at its centre.  I introduced the idea of creating a Poetry Leaflet before the summer.  It will be less expensive than producing a book yet still give everyone the opportunity to see their work published.  If it is successful, perhaps it can be done again, but we will see.  The assignment was to write a poem on the theme of ANIMALS in any of the many poetic forms we have already covered.  All poems completed and returned on 10th February session will count towards the next certificate so it is definitely worth a go.

At that session I will also be introducing  new poetry form - the I WISH poem.  This is a comparitively easy poem to write.  It only runs to 8 or 10 lines and is doesn't have to rhyme - although if anyone would like to try it in rhyme, that is perfectly okay.  An example of an I WISH poem is:

I wish the sun would always shine.
I wish the birds would always sing.
I wish that flowers would always bloom.
I wish my gran would always smile.
I wish the baby wouldn't cry.
I wish the stars would twinkle bright
I wish that fairy tales came true
I wish, I wish, all day and night.

In this example I have rhymed the last couple of lines but because it runs in couplets, it would be quite easy to make the whole thing rhyme!  Obviously a common theme running through the poem would make sense, but I particularly like it because it is a very child-friendly poetry form that does not require too much work - just a love of words and some lively ideas.

So don't forget the date of our next session then, same time, same place.  Look forward to seeing you all.