Category: Uncategorized
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December 2014 – thinking back over a term of after-school poetry… I’ve just finished a term of after school poetry clubs at two schools: what exceptional fun we had! Yes, it was work: we were poetry-writing, but no, it was play: it was AFTER school. It was free time: magic time. Poetry for sheer fun…
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Winter lights and colours are featuring in my end-of-term workshops for schools, and fascinating we’re all finding them to be! The darker the days, the brighter our streets glow, of course. On my able writers’ day at Burstow Primary School (Surrey) this week, for instance, we found ourselves gazing at the lit-up squares of office…
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Time to dig out some of my more spooky/sparky published poems. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sounds in the Wind I can hear in the wind a wandering werewolf, howling, hunting, haunting, a jumbling giant, barging, bashing, breaking, a bruising bully, pinching, punching, pushing, a vicious vampire, teasing, taunting, torturing, a merciless monster, smashing, slashing, storming. I can hear…
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“Would you like to read out your poem?” I asked a little girl in my after-school poetry club last week. “Yes!” she said. But she didn’t. She sang it. True, we’d started the session with a little word-building song, muttered and mumbled along to a couple of twangy chords on my ukulele, but that was…
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‘Rabbits and hares!’ some of us say on the first day of a new month. ‘White rabbits!’ say others. But in classrooms around the country we’ll be saying ‘Foxes, stoats, owls, hoots, squeaks, twitches, shudders…!’ We’ll be opening the doors and windows too, to watch and listen to the secret world of trees and woods…
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Can you hear the treetops? Can you hear the voices – the voices of the trees? Can you hear them singing to the gentle summer breeze? Can you hear them laughing? Can you hear them sigh? Can you hear them whispering their secrets to the sky? I can hear them playing, as they swing and…
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Suddenly, the globe has slipped round; we’ve turned the corner into autumn! There’s a crispness to the sunshine, a brassy tint to the trees, and a brisk, bustling sense of purpose as the school run starts up again. At last I can get cracking with my autumn term workshops! Autumn Leaves have sailed onto…
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Phew! That’s this evening’s watering circuit done! Mind you, most of it landed on the weeds and brambles and the various multiplying monster plants I’m sure I never knowingly planted, that are swiftly taking over my garden. As for the bindweed – it’s a total bind: the few shrub successes I have in my garden…
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Hello! If you’re a teacher, this post may be of interest to you; and perhaps even if you’re not! It’s about my plans for next term’s poetry workshops, which I provide for children of all abilities, aged 3 – 13. Wonders, real and imaginary, will shape my workshops next term, with birds, leaves and giants…
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Hello! Between my workshops, I’ve been scribbling away as ever – in the garden, at the kitchen sink, between poetry sessions in school halls and classrooms, at the motorway service station on the way home, anywhere and everywhere, with various outcomes in the pipeline. A book of my poems, for 5-8 year-olds, entitled Poetry Party,…
Kate Williams 