Spent today collating work done by children and their families in workshop with me as MR HAIKU at Exeter's Royal Albert Memorial Museum back in Febuary. That day was enlivened even further by the presence in addition to MR HAIKU of poet Alan Summers. The workshops were geared up to encourage new ways of interpretation of artefacts in a very traditional museum gallery in this case the stuffed animal gallery - via poetry.... I'll share back some here at a future date -in the meantime here's a couple:a barn owl glides
through the starlit sky
grasping claws
Steffanie Griffiths
through the starlit sky
grasping claws
Steffanie Griffiths
beautiful tiger
people are talking about
poetry
Poppy
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4 comments:
so good to see children writing poetry. rather than be taught how to 'make paper' they could learn to love poetry and prose.
I like both haiku. Something about the ‘tiger’: It speaks by itself, but also reminds me of Blake’s ‘Tyger, Tyger burning bright / In the forest of the night,/ What immortal hand or eye /Dare frame thy fearful symmetry’, as well as of the famous Zen story of the man who - chased by a tiger, holds onto a bush just before falling into the precipice, watching a delicious strawberry…
Thanks Borut,
If one is familiar with Blake's 'Tyger' it becomes almost impossible to view a Tiger without that poem coming to mind. It is the same with a number of other poems, books, artworks. I can't read the words 'looking glass' without thinking of, even if only fleetingly, Alice.
CJ - Yes getting children writing and if possible away from their school desks is wonderful.
Making paper's fun too though especially if you then do something intersting with the paper. I have a friend, an artist, who makes paper with young people and then they go on to make huge paper inatallations with the paper...
Paul is also being very modest here.
The dynamics, interplay, between the children and their parent(s) or grandparents was magical.
The parents eyes were opened to the amazing creativity of the children and the kids loved their parent(s) taking part on an equal level and just being very enthusiastic and relaxed enough to be spontaneous.
Paul's part is like Mr Haiku; Merlin and Peter Pan!
The museum loved the workshops because their exhibits came alive for the children, and adults who read haiku saw the exhibits in a fresh way too.
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