P O E T R Y F O R C H I L D R E N

COME AND MEET ME

So, can you tell me what poetry is? Some children in my local primary school had strong views on this subject when I met them: "We like poems to be written with rhyme, rhythm and lots of stories" they said. So, to give them a treat each week when I visited them, I had a little go at writing poems that I thought they would like, and they did. This little character on the right is Mickledy-Me. He was the subject of the first poem I wrote for them, and he is an "invisible" friend, only seen by children!!! He was their favourite character and I've written four sequels to my first poem and Mickledy-Me gets up to lots of tricks.So, what is poetry for you? There are as many definitions of poetry as there are poets. Wordsworth defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings;" Emily Dickinson said, "If I read a book and it makes my body so cold no fire ever can warm me, I know that is poetry;" and Dylan Thomas defined poetry this way: "Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing." I have now written 800 poems in the last few years, 344 of which have been published in the books above, and they were chosen by many different teachers in the schools of West Yorkshire. I hope you'll buy them for your classroom or home, but try them first from my website.

MY THREE LITTLE ALIENS: Illustration by Grace Nixon - 6 years of age.