sallymurphy.com.au

Sally Murphy, Australian author

Poetry Friday: I’m Excited!

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It’s Poetry Friday and I’m excited.

Firstly, I’m excited because it is Friday and, instead of wishing I had time to put together a Poetry Friday post I am actually here doing it. Huzzah! Life has been chaotic this year, mostly good-chaotic, but this has not left as much time as I’d like for fun things like Poetry Friday. So I am glad to be here today.

Secondly, I am excited because my poetry book for teachers, Teaching Poetry for Pleasure and Purpose won an award! Taddah!

 

It was really  lovely to hear that this resource, with lots of teaching ideas, background information and, of course poems – by myself and lots of other wonderful poets, took out this category. Hopefully this means it will end up being seen by more teachers keen to use poetry in their classrooms.

Lastly, I’m excited because today, George is coming!!! Who is George? Thanks for asking!

THIS is George:

And those are my arms holding him when I met him last Sunday.  And today, George is coming to live with ME. And I am like a child in my excitement. There has been a dog-sized hole in my home since early last year, when my much loved Jonah died. George won’t replace him –  you can’t replace a much loved family member. But now that I have had time, I am ready to love again – and boy is George loveable. He is as soft and silky as he looks, and those eyes are just adorable.

To celebrate these three things: Poetry Friday, the book award, and a brand new puppy,  it’s appropriate to share a poem from the book which is about – of course – dogs.  This is my Definition Poem (you can read more about those here) for the word ‘dog’.

 

Happy George Day! And happy Poetry Friday!

I’m off to visit my Poetry Friday friends while I wait for it to be George-time. You can find the Poetry Friday round up here on Sarah’s blog.

Poetry Friday: Winter is STILL Here

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It’s been over a month since my last Poetry Friday offering and, in that post I was complaining about the cold, and looking for reasons to LIKE winter.

Fast forward to today, and its cold and wet and wintry – and, you guessed it, I am still struggling to find good things about winter.

But, I do have a pair of haiku that I wrote about being cold – and trying to flip between the downsides of being cold and the upsides. Here it is:

Cold

Caught in the rain

Burning of frostbitten toes

Blades of wintry wind

 

A plunge in cold pool

Bubbling fizzing lemonade

Shivering lemonade.

(Copyright Sally Murphy)

Not sure this really counts as flipping the bad to the good – because I seem to be arguing that being cold is winter in bad, but being cold in summer is good. Can you tell I’m a summer person?

But, because I’m a contrary kind of person, I also have a pair of haiku about the pros and cons of being hot.

Hot

Sweat-drenched smelly socks

Suffocating in-school days

Unrelenting sun

 

Thawing spring sunshine

Steam rising from chocolate drink

Toasty slipper toes.

(Copyright Sally Murphy)

 

And you can see that I found the good things about being hot right in the midst of winter.

 

Incidentally, these ‘opposite haikus’ (as I call them) appeared in my book for teachers last year, and were written quite some time before that. It was only when I typed them up for this blog post that I noticed something in the syllable counts. If I’m sticking to a 5/7/5 syllable count for each haiku (and yes, I do know that true haiku do not have to adhere strictly to this count) – then  the line about the chocolate drink is questionable. It depends on pronunciation – the dictionary tells me that it definitely has 3 syllables – choc-o-late – but I confess, when Is ay it it definitely comes out with only two – chock – let – which is how it is that I have never noticed this in my own poem before.

Does it matter? Probably not – although now that I’ve noticed it, it annoys me, because I’m a stickler for rules.

But being distracted by syllable counts has taken my mind of being cold. So that’s gotta be good thing, right?

I’m off to make a hot chocolate and browse the rest of the Poetry Friday posts. They always warm my heart. The Roundup is hosted by Elisabeth – you should check it out 🙂

Making Poetry a Pleasure

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One of my long standing  goals as a poet and as an educator  has been to find ways to get more poetry into the hands of hearts of Australian children. So, when I was approached by PETAA (the Primary English Teacher’s Association) to put together a resource for Australian teachers, I said yes. A very enthusiastic yes.  A yes which I may have briefly regretted when I realised the very tight deadline – I was approached in  February, and it needed to be finished by May.

But, in spite of a that super-tight deadline, I am really thrilled that this week PETAA members all over Australia (and some further afield) have received their member’s pack, with my little offering inside.

And, today, my own member’s pack arrived, plus a second parcel with more copies just for me.

Teaching Poetry for Pleasure and Purpose includes:

  • practical activities for teaching poetry across the primary school years, linked to the curriculum.
  • definitions and examples of key poetic terms and concepts
  •  poems (of course) – some are by me, some are by other wonderful poets
  • lots of resource suggestions
  • an introduction by THE Jackie French.  How good is that?

Oh – and something exciting for me is that some of own photos appear in the book – you can spot one in the image above – a photo of my beach!

Of course most exciting of all is the thought that teachers will find the book helpful for teaching poetry – and that kids will benefit from the pleasure of  reading and writing poetry. If you are not a PETAA member, don’t worry – you can still buy the book direct from PETAA.

 

 

 

 

 

Poetry Friday: Rules rules rules

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It’s Poetry Friday and, after a few weeks’ absence, I am really happy to be posting again today.

 

Last Friday as an actual Poetry Friday for me. I spent the day at a conference where the focus was children’s poetry. The ALEA/ACMI State Conference in Melbourne was a wonderful event, with participants able to  choose a poetry workshop or keynote for every single session. Magic.  I was lucky to be invited to the conference to present a keynote on the importance of pleasure in poetry, and to then give a workshop.

I began the workshop by giving each participants two stickynotes: a heart shaped one (on which I asked them to write something they liked about poetry, or a line of poetry they loved) and a down arrow shaped one. On this second I asked them to write  the thing they liked least about poetry. Sadly, I think lots of people found this one easier. the stickynotes were then stuck on the whiteboard – the hearts on a Poet-Tree and the arrows on a rubbish bin.

I brought the stickynotes home, and, as I looked at them on my desk, knew I needed to use them for something. What better than a found poem? So, here we have it: a poem about what teachers DON’T like about poetry.

So Many Rules!20160909_152017

 

Rules

Rules

Rules

So many rules

and forms

and different types.

Curriculum restricts

prohibits

limits

making kids frustrated

And me too!

Structures

and restrictions

and rules.

Hard haiku

ridiculous rhyme

limitations of vocabulary.

Skill heavy

makes it hard to teach.

Takes time to read

to understand

to connect.

Sometimes I can’t relate

to the words

and I hate being told

what a poem means

when I think something different.

Writing in rhyme can be boring

I don’t know what to write about!

Even if I had the ideas

I don’t have the technical ability:

I am terrible at writing poetry!

Boys want to write

about snot

the toilet

disgusting food –

and  that’s just not poetry to me.

Poetry can be sad

and dry

and it’s filled with

rules

rules

rules.

 

(Poem copyright Sally Murphy)

Sound negative? Actually, this was a really positive bunch of teachers, there to learn, to share because they recognised that poetry is important. Next week I’ll share a second poem – based on the things they liked about poetry. See you then.

In the meantime, this week’s Poetry Friday roundup is hosted by Michelle at Today’s Little Ditty.

What Laura Evans Likes About Children’s Poetry

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I am having such fun having so many different people drop in this month to blog about poetry. If you’ve just arrived here for the first time, I am having a month long bloganza of visiting bloggers telling me (and you) what they like about children’s poetry. This is my way of celebrating the release of my new verse novel, Toppling. So, to today’s post. Today I am delighted to welcome Laura Evans, blogger and all round nice person. Over to you, Laura.
The Beginner’s Mind
By Laura Evans

One of my favorite things about children’s poetry is the beginner’s mind. Babies acquire up to 40 words a day. As the baby grows she will share her word collection: “Da Da” and “Ma Ma.” In the next step, she will actively start collecting words by asking, “What is it?” Sometimes children don’t even need to know what it is, to appreciate a word.

When my son was three, we moved to a new house. After checking that I had packed his toys, he asked, “What else are we taking?” I said we would take our couch, chairs, and tables. Then he asked, “But, Mom, what about the furniture?”

Young children appreciate the sounds of words. To my son, “furniture” sounded like a grown-up word. It was big enough to correspond with the huge task of moving a household. Children like the way that words snap, tickle, and slide over each other. They enjoy the musical sounds of rhymes.

Besides sound, poetry deals in details. Nothing is too small to be captured in a poem. The answers to “what is it” are the details of life. A child begins by naming the things around her: banana, apple, a spoon, a cat or dog. In poetry, the details are so specific that readers are compelled to step closer to see them just as we draw near to examine a small painting. So, when poets write about the red-winged black bird or a giant panda, readers are brought closer to the natural world.

As children grow they continue to gather more words. Words become a basic part of their relationships in life. A child might talk to his Mom different from how he talks with his best friend. A boy can tell his Mom that he was scared at a movie. But he will not admit this to his friend.

Poets use words to crack open silence. Then we gather the silence back around the words in the art of the pause. This creates a frame to showcase the language. A poem may be built on the tension between pauses and the right words. And the right words are arranged on scaffolding that disappears in the poem, especially in free verse poetry.

Choosing exactly the right words is part of the thrift of poetry. Words are chosen and spent with great care. Non-poets will collect and discard words to participate in a common vocabulary of a community. But a poet will not limit herself. She collects words that lay on the fringes of society. Poets extend a democratic hand to any word. Then they save it and wait to use it in the right poem.

By the time a child reaches adulthood, the world can begin to look a bit tarnished and old. Adult poets try to find new ways of looking at our old world. This brings us back to the beginner’s mind. When it is applied to poetry, this is the stuff of miracles. Anything can happen.

Thanks for dropping in Laura and for sharing such insightful thoughts. Laura Evans has published more than five dozen poems in literary journals. Her blog at http://www.teachpoetryk12.com/ introduces newbie
children’s poets to the world of children’s poetry. And she reviews  poetry books for teachers and parents.

sallymurphy.com.au