Kate Williams

Autumn can seem a melancholy time – even without a pandemic hanging over us – but autumn trees and leaves offer wonderful pick-me-ups.

The darker the sky, the more fiery they can look, and the wilder the wind, the more carefree their movements. Then the sun slips through and the glow of gold, bronze, brass, crimson or lemon can be dazzling. They’re exciting to watch, catch, spin and launch, and fascinating to examine close-up. They’re fun to draw and colour, or brass-rub through paper, and best of all, they’re ideal for inspiring poetry.

I’m running some virtual autumn leaf poetry sessions with schools around the UK, starting next week, and we’ll be exploring ways to catch those fly-away leaves with words as well as fingers. For younger children, action rhymes and word-building songs with ukulele will help us build language and imagery for describing their qualities and movements, and I’ll be asking classes of all ages to stand up and ‘be’ leaves too – a great way to feel your way to the words you really want.

Where do leaves go? Through the sky? (What sort of sky?) Over the city, ocean, mountains? (And what are they like?) Could there be a daredevil leaf that takes off on a world tour – or further…? And if you were a leaf, how would you feel about autumn?

I’ll also be forwarding picture-poem frames to the schools, varied for different ages and stages.

There’s definitely a bright side to autumn.

Kate
katewilliams.poetry@gmail.com