...says Carol Ann Duffy. I read the bit about poetry and innocence a few times. It's the first time I've seen it put that way.
3 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Ask any poet who has ever run a poetry workshop which group would most easily write a poem - a class of eight-year-olds or a class of adults?
Tis true, tis true. I've worked with adult classes and with kids and by far it's the kids who are more in touch with poetry. At a school visit last spring the poems I read meant as much to the kids in the audience as to any adult audience I've ever encountered. And when it comes to writing, well, it's so much easier for kids to tap into the imaginative than for adults. There's something to be said for knowing the inner child...
The other morning my 9 yr-old son woke up and said, "smorgasbord. Smorgasbord, smorgasbord. What does smorgasbord mean?" I told him. He said, "it's a funny word."
This morning he came down the stairs, reciting, "As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, when they meet with an obstacle mount to the sky." Last night he told me he didn't know what that line meant, but he liked the sound of it.
I think it's funny that these little moments of poetry often happen in the morning, when he's fresh from sleep. For me, too, that's a mushy and rich time full of images that my conscious mind hasn't yet had time to destroy.
I worked shift work for many years and somewhere along the line in that day-night rotation I lost that mushy and rich time. It took a few years for it to return after I left that way of life, but when it did I noticed it. I cherish it.
3 comments:
Ask any poet who has ever run a poetry workshop which group would most easily write a poem - a class of eight-year-olds or a class of adults?
Tis true, tis true. I've worked with adult classes and with kids and by far it's the kids who are more in touch with poetry. At a school visit last spring the poems I read meant as much to the kids in the audience as to any adult audience I've ever encountered. And when it comes to writing, well, it's so much easier for kids to tap into the imaginative than for adults. There's something to be said for knowing the inner child...
B-)
The other morning my 9 yr-old son woke up and said, "smorgasbord. Smorgasbord, smorgasbord. What does smorgasbord mean?" I told him. He said, "it's a funny word."
This morning he came down the stairs, reciting, "As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, when they meet with an obstacle mount to the sky." Last night he told me he didn't know what that line meant, but he liked the sound of it.
I think it's funny that these little moments of poetry often happen in the morning, when he's fresh from sleep. For me, too, that's a mushy and rich time full of images that my conscious mind hasn't yet had time to destroy.
FG
I worked shift work for many years and somewhere along the line in that day-night rotation I lost that mushy and rich time. It took a few years for it to return after I left that way of life, but when it did I noticed it. I cherish it.
Post a Comment