Teaching Resources: Primary Schools
Poem
Don’t by Helena Nelson
The poet and her work
Helena Nelson was born in Cheshire and now lives in Fife. She is the founder editor of
Happenstance Press which specialises in poetry pamphlets. Her first collection, Starlight
on Water (Rialto Press, 2003) was a joint winner of the Jerwood Aldeburgh Prize. Her
first pamphlet collection Mr and Mrs Philpott on Holiday at Auchterawe & Other Poems
was published by Kettillonia in 2001. Unsuitable Poems (a pamphlet) was published in
2005 and her second book, Plot and Counter-Plot was published by Shoestring Press in
2010. She also reviews for a wide range of poetry magazines, including Ambit, The Dark
Horse, Poetry Review, Mslexia, Magma and The London Magazine.
The Poem
‘Don’t’ is published in The Thing That Mattered Most: Scottish poems for children edited
by Julie Johnstone (Scottish Poetry Library/Black & White, 2006). Helena Nelson wrote, ‘I
am interested in the words and phrases we remember all our lives (even when we don’t
want to). My grandmother, for example, always used to say, “Never let the sun go down
on your wrath”, while my mother used to say (among other things), “Don’t speak to your
father like that.” When you’re a kid, people are always telling you what not to do. One
day I was thinking about all these negative instructions – “don’t do this” and “don’t do
that” – and out of that thought came this poem. It starts in a bossy voice but it ends in a
sad one.’
Choose from the following activities to build your own Stage 2 poetry lessons.
Opening up the poem (reading)
ENG 2-04a, ENG 2-19a, LIT 2-15a, ENG 2-17a
Key questions
• Who is speaking in the poem?
• To whom are they speaking?
• What age is the son/daughter? Does this change through the poem?
• ‘Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath’ is a proverb, a short well known saying
which gives advice– what does it mean?
• How should we read this poem? Do we need to say ‘don’t’ at other points of the poem
as well as in the title?
• Why do you think the poet left ‘don’t’ out of the instructions?
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Teaching Resources: Primary Schools
‘Don’t’ by Helena Nelson
Research
• Encourage pupils to ask at home or research on the internet to find other examples
of proverbs. What pieces of advice are always given in their homes? What do they
mean? Make a class list of proverbs.
• Find other poems which offer advice and rules to children. Robert Louis Stevenson’s
‘Whole Duty of Children’ is a good place to start. Do you agree with the advice the
poems give? Have ideas of good behaviour changed over generations? Make a class
anthology of advice poems that you find - you can add to it later when you write
your own!
Building on the poem (writing)
LIT 2-25a LIT 2-26a ENG 2-27a ENG 2-31a
• Using the same layout as ‘Don’t’, take the opportunity to answer back and write
advice poems from a child to a parent. ‘Don’t forget to tuck me in at night, Don’t kiss
me in the playground.’
• Use your class list of proverbs to write a proverb poem. This could be sensible
advice or nonsensical like Paul Muldoon’s ‘Symposium’(see link below). A lot of
proverbs seem to contradict each other ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder’ but
‘out of sight, out of mind’. Why not write a poem designed to muddle people with
its opposite sayings?
• Write poems called ‘Do’ encouraging people to remember all the positive steps they
can take. For example, what does somebody need to remember to do in order to be
a valued member of your class? ‘Do be kind to others, do say “Hello” with a smile.’
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SCOTTISH POETRY LIBRARY
TEACHING RESOURCES: AMARY SCHOOLS
Climbing inside the poem (listening, talking and performance)
LIT 2-02a, LIT 2-04, LIT 2-09a
• In small groups rehearse performances of ‘Don’t’. Should there be more than one
adult voice talking to the child? Maybe a pupil could play the silent role of the child,
responding to the instructions with their expressions and body language.
• In groups the class can role play the conversations between the implied characters
from ‘Don’t’. Maybe there could be a role for a family therapist to mediate between
the parents who nag and the child who doesn’t listen? Or maybe they could act out
the child leaving home at the end of the poem?
Teaching Resources: Primary Schools
‘Don’t’ by Helena Nelson
Further reading and links
Books
The Thing That Mattered Most: Scottish poems for children edited by Julie Johnstone
(SPL/B&W, 2006)
Stevenson, Robert Louis, A Child’s Garden of Verses (Puffin, 2008)
Websites
www.happenstancepress.com
The Happenstance Press website, including Helena Nelson’s blog page
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dFGw_lzU4s
Paul Muldoon reads ‘Symposium’
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SCOTTISH POETRY LIBRARY
TEACHING RESOURCES: AMARY SCHOOLS
www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poets/helena-nelson
Biography, poems (including ‘Don’t’), In The Library, links