Poetry Tips & Tricks 2
Playing with Language
Developing a sense of fun and curiosity about language is a vital part of reading,
writing and engaging with poetry. In this section, you will find 10 ideas that
promote a fascination with language - how it works, sounds and feels - as well
as encouraging curiosity about life and the things around us. Use these ideas to
experiment with words and build creative confidence.
1. Magical metaphor
Make connections, strengthen meaning
2. Questions and answers
Find new ways of looking at the world
3. Jigsaw poetry
Make new poems from existing ones
4. Telescoping
Focus in on details in description
5. Five favourite words
Capture the essence of favourite words
6. Sensing…
Use your senses to create pictures in words
7. Take a model, take a meter
Use existing patterns and structures to innovate
8. Unexpected prepositions
Explore new perspectives
9. A day in the life
Consider other perspectives and points of view
10. Word hunting
A great way to develop vocabulary
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Playing with Language (i)
Magical Metaphor, Part 1
Magical metaphor Make connections, strengthen meaning
A metaphor is a sort of poetic lie, really.
It allows you to say that something actually is something else – and when you
stop to think about it, the “something else” is usually connected, makes sense, or
is a good idea; it gives a new way of seeing the object. Try playing these games
with metaphors to get used to using them:
How do I see you?
Think of a person you know well. Then answer these questions:
• If, by magic, they were actually a time of day, what would it be?
• If they were a type of food, what would they turn into that would truly suit their
personality?
• What season? Colour? Animal? What would that animal be doing?
• What piece of furniture would they be? Where would that piece of furniture
be found?
Describe someone you know by using only the answers to these and similar
questions, and see if a partner can guess who you are talking about. You should
choose your answers to suit their personality, their character, not their physical
appearance, and you should say nothing that is unkind. You can generate lots
of useful questions – think about musical instruments, forms of transport, types of
book, clothing, countries, trees, flowers, weather… The list is endless! All you have
to do is provide the answers.
Work on extending your answers to try and give more detail about the person’s
character.
So, not just,“She is a cup of tea,”
but: “She is a cup of aromatic Earl Grey tea, served in a china cup, translucent
amber with a slice of lemon,”
or, a quite different person:
“She is a cup of strong black tea in a workman’s mug, dark steaming depths
sweetened with three white sugars.”
As you build up the picture, you might want to edit out the “She is …” at the
beginning of each line, and go straight in with the image. Decide on the best
order for your ideas, too, paying particular attention to how you want to begin
and end.
And remember – only kind things are to be put into your poem! When you have
finished, you might want to share it with its subject and see what they think!
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Playing with Language (i)
Magical Metaphor, Part 2
Magical metaphor, cont’d Make connections, strengthen meaning
Animal magic
Imagine there are some rather special animals living in and around a tree. They
represent all sorts of things we can’t normally see or touch, like friendship, love,
fear, anger.
So, if you could choose an animal to represent a feeling or an emotion which
would you choose?
Friendship is a …
Laughter is a …
Fear is …
Once you have chosen an animal, try to add more detail about what the animal
is doing, or where it is, or the time of day, to help create the idea of the feeling or
emotion you have linked it to.
Or think about your favourite animal – what emotion or feeling is it best suited to?
And start from there.
“Friendship is a slow loris, warm and wrapping, softly flowing round my waiting
shoulders.”
“Laughter is a scampering squirrel, dashing through the branches and
scattering acorns bouncing to the ground.”
“Doubt is a slow dark mole burrowing deeply in my soul.”
The poetic trick is that the animal must become the emotion, or vice versa – do
not say it is “like”, say it actually “ is “!
You will find more ideas for using metaphor with the teaching notes for Gillian
Clarke’s The Water Horse in the Poetry for Primary Pupils section of the SPL web
site.
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Playing with Language (ii)
Questions and Answers
Questions and answers New ways of looking at the world
This can be played as a verbal game, but it works well as a way of creating a list
poem, too. The children can generate questions, or you can provide them with
questions, then encourage them to give unexpected, imaginative answers which
they should try to extend with interesting details. These answers can also be
developed to create more than one line.
Different answers to the same question can be compared and combined:
What is the future?
A box of golden treasure, waiting to be opened.
A winding road that curls beyond the hills.
A mystery, asking to be solved.
Where is the past?
Inside my head, in a hall of mirrors.
Locked in the attic, gathering dust.
Wrapped in my heart to keep me close and warm.
What are dreams?
Rainbows of the mind, dancing in sunlight.
Fluttering birds flitting past the window.
Dark night shadows making me scared.
What is the wind?
The breath of Old Father Time flowing over our lives.
The voice of the trees talking.
Other questions might include:
What is the sun…?
What is the moon…?
Why does it rain…?
Where do stories come from…?
Where do the days go…?
What is time…?
What is laughter…?
Where does hunger live…?
Why do birds sing…?
The possibilities are endless!
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Playing with Language (iii)
Jigsaw Poetry
Jigsaw Poetry Make new poems from existing ones
This is a fun way of making new poems that allows children to be adventurous,
creative, reflective and analytical. It needs a bit of advance preparation on your
part...
1. Take a poem they have not seen before, and make an enlarged copy of the
text.
2. Cut the text up into words and phrases (you can be quite random about this)
and then put them in an envelope. This is the jigsaw.
3. The children can now use these jigsaw pieces to create a new poem, first
looking at all the pieces to see what they say, then making selections and
combinations that appeal to them and working towards phrases and lines
and finally a complete poem.
4. They don’t need to use all the jigsaw pieces if they don’t want to.
5. They can also be given some blank cards on which to add small grammatical
words where needed to ensure sense.
6. When the children are happy with their poems, they can see the original and
comment on the similarities and differences and consider which they prefer
and why.
7. If more than one group is doing this activity, they should be given the chance
to view and compare each other’s work before seeing the original piece.
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Playing with Language (iv)
Telescoping
Telescoping Focus in on details in description
This should begin as a discussion activity in pairs, or as a ‘think and scribble’
exercise led by the teacher, but it can then be used as a technique to intensify or
clarify written descriptions in poetry and prose.
1. Take a memory. Maybe your first memory. What is it?
2. Now focus in some more, as if you had a telescope and were twisting it to let
you see more clearly. How old are you in this memory? Where are you? What
are you doing?
3. Now, focus in more closely. What else is happening? Who else is there? What
are they doing?
4. More closely still. What else can you see around you, what objects or scenery?
5. Now, twist the telescope again and sharpen the focus still further. What could
you hear, smell?
6. And focus in again. What do you remember feeling or thinking?
7. And focus in once more – what other details do you recall, however small,
that stick in your mind from this moment?
8. Collect these thoughts in a grid or a list.
9. Now try to work them into some lines that will allow the reader to share that
memory. With each line, take the reader further into the memory, give the
additional details as you focus in and lure them into your thoughts.
10.You can do this for other situations, too, not just memories – you might want
to telescope in to a key event in a novel or in history, or in a news story or
a painting, and begin to imagine the finer details that aren’t immediately
apparent.
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Playing with Language (v)
Five Favourite Words
Five Favourite Words Capture the essence
What are your five favourite words?
Think about words that have a special meaning for you, words that bring back
particular memories, words that you like the sound of, or words that you like the
feel of in your mouth as you say them, or words to do with things you like doing…
Collect your five favourites. They may not be the same today as tomorrow, they
don’t have to be serious, they can be fun and they can be off the wall if you like.
Make a list, then for each word, explain to a partner why you have chosen it.
Now try to capture some aspect of each word in four or five more words – you
can hyphenate, and don’t waste time on ‘and’s or ‘the’s – try to go straight for
meaning!
Here are some examples:
Chocolate - rich, dark, tongue-smooth temptation
Serendipity - a happy, skippy tumbleturn
Island - wave-lapped solace, silver-shored
Whisper - soft, ear-caressing secret
Cuddle - warm enfolding scoop of love
Kayaking - sleek streamlined seascape fun
You could also experiment with turning your favourite words into calligrams using
WordArt or a similar font-art program so that their appearance helps to express
what it is that appeals to you about them.
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Playing with Language (vi)
Sensing...
Sensing Use your senses to create pictures in words
Think about using your senses to describe a time or a place or a person.
First make a list of what is special about that time or place or person, and then
link each item to an appropriate sense. This is a method that should allow you
to create richly celebratory poems of favourite people and things, and you can
give more than one example for each sense each time.
Sensing… the seasons
I hear Autumn in the…
I see it in…
I feel it…
I smell Autumn…
and I taste it in the…
Sensing… a friend or someone special
I hear you in…
I see you…
I feel you in the…
I smell you in the…
and I taste you in the…
Sensing… my home
I hear my home in…
I see my home…
I feel it in the…
I smell it in the…
and I taste my home in the…
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Playing with Language (vii)
Take a Model, Take a Meter
Take a Model, Take a Meter Use existing patterns and structures to innovate
Take a model
Using the patterns and structures of existing poems is a very helpful way to start
making poems of your own. You don’t have to use a whole poem, there might
just be a line or two that would work as a model to imitate.
You will find some ideas for ways of doing this, using the resources for Gillian
Clarke’s The Water Horse in the Poetry for Primary Pupils section.
Take a meter
Poems often have a set rhythm or meter, and one way of creating a poem is
to borrow the patterns of meter from an existing poem to make a new poem
following the same rhythms.
Start with something short – it can be part of a poem – and use this as a model.
Limericks are the obvious one, with a lot of fun to be had. Explore the meter by
clapping and tapping and working out the syllables as you read aloud – you can
even pace a poem out on the floor. Decide on the rules for this particular meter,
the syllables per line, and the number of lines per verse.
Then, work as a class or group to mimic these patterns with new content. You
can borrow existing phrases, and just change the lexical words to bring new
meaning and ideas to your revised version of the poem.
Iambic pentameter
This is the meter often used by Shakespeare: ten beats, in pairs, with the stress on
the second beat – i.e. 5 stressed syllables per line:
It wíll have blóod they sáy: blood wíll have blóod (Macbeth).
Writing in iambic pentameters can give a beautifully measured feel to an idea or
a description – it can be a good way to extend a thought, perhaps in a list poem
or to answer questions:
What is the future?
A wínding róad that cúrls beyónd the hílls.
Where is the past?
Wrapped ín my héart to kéep me clóse and wárm.
You will find more on iambic pentameters and ideas for exploring them in Seamus
Heaney’s poem, From Lightenings, VIII, about the Monks of Clonmacnoise in the
Poetry for Secondary Students section of the SPL web site.
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Playing with Language (viii)
Unexpected Prepositions
Unexpected Prepositions Explore new perspectives
This is a great way of exploring some novel possibilities - with a bit of Knowledge
About Language in the process.
Take an abstract object or an idea that would not normally be given a concrete
place in the world, that you would not normally be able to stand beside, that
would not normally have an interior...
Imagine how it could be if you linked it to a preposition, and explore how it would
be if you could go inside it, beyond it, beside it...
Here are some suggestions - stretch your imagination to complete them, creating
some interesting poems and perspectives along the way:
Inside the wind …
Behind the wind …
Beside the wind …
Beyond the wind …
Under the wind …
Inside a whisper …
Beyond a whisper …
Beyond my laughter …
Under my laughter …
Beside my laughter …
Below the music …
Within the music …
Behind the music …
Remember to compare your ideas with others in your class!
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Playing with Language (ix)
A Day in the LIfe
A Day in the Life Consider other perspectives and points of view
Take an object. An everyday object. Consider life from the perspective of this
object.
Here are some very ordinary suggestions to get you thinking:
A washing up liquid bottle
A pair of slippers
A handbag or a kit bag
A leaf on a tree
A teddy bear
Choose one and try to imagine:
• How would it see the world?
• What would it feel, what would it think and say?
• What would be important to its daily life?
• What stories might it have to tell of what it has seen and heard?
Create a list of observations, thoughts and feelings from the perspective of this
object. You might want to write in the first person as if you were the object, or you
might prefer to describe it in the third person.
Use these ideas to make a narrative poem about a day in the life of your object.
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Playing with Language (x)
Word Hunting
Word Hunting A great way to develop vocabulary
1. Take a verb or an adjective, perhaps to do with other work in class (maybe
you are looking at speech, or character, or the weather).
2. If possible, gather a selection of thesauruses and go word-hunting to collect as
many words as you can – for movement or speaking or to describe heat or cold
or a particular aspect of character.
3. Then, review those words – check meanings, consider favourites, share your
spoils, reflect on the worth of the different thesauruses used, too!
4. Now create a word spectrum – sort the words into an order that grades them
from one extreme to another – very slow to very fast for words of movement,
or coolest to warmest for words of heat. (This works well on screen or with each
word on a large piece of paper or card – you can move them more easily and
even hang them up as a washing line for the class to see and consider.)
5. Alternatively, use WordArt to express the meaning of your three best words and
create a display.
These activities will make you think closely about meaning and shades of
meaning and the importance of making a good choice of words in their writing.
Keep your words safe. Use the some of your new words as soon as you can, in
poetry or in prose - or try using the approach suggested in the Five Favourite
Words activity.
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