Poetry for Beginners

On Wednesday I popped along to the Garden Cafe, here in Frome, for another fabulous Crysse Morrison-hosted open-mic poetry evening.  Mr L was out motorcycling so I had to take Little Sprig and Tiny Sprig along too - but I like them to come: they know Mummy writes poetry; they know she performs it in her frilly knickers; rather sweetly they tell their teachers they like Mummy's poems the best.  Lovely, but clearly very important to expose them to the works of lots of other poets too.  

The theme for the evening was 'On the Road Again', and so we listened to the headlining guest poets Mo Robinson and Paul Tobin (please follow the links to find out more about them, they were each an absolute joy in very different ways).  Crysse will blog far more eloquently than I can so I will limit my remarks on the evening; partly because I retired with the Sprigs to the back room in order that the listeners should not be disturbed by small people, so I had to strain to hear the wonderful contributions from Liv Torc; Rosie Eliot; Rose Flint and Dawn Gorman amongst others.  By arriving prepared with dot-to-dot books and crayons, I didn't realise I would only be making it worse - who knew colouring in was such a noisy affair?  

At interval time, we made our excuses and left. The Sprigs were pooped. They'd had an exhausting day being really nice to each other (delightful; almost unprecedented).  I was prepared to agree to anything by then, so we had pyjamas, milk and cookies at ten-thirty p.m. 

The point is this: we sat with our milk and cookies, feeling very naughty because all 5-7 year olds should have been in bed hours ago, and I asked them if hearing all those poems had inspired them.

The responses say it all. The first is by Little, aged 7, and he says 'Mucky Puppy' represents his little sister, and 'Tidy Teddy' represents himself.  The second is by Tiny, aged 5, and I am grateful for both the frog and the plum.

Poem 

The mucky puppy eats ice cream

The tidy teddy eats vegetables

They mesh together

To make vegetably ice cream

And they both share

© Little Sprig, April 2012

Poem

A princess had a princess toy

She said to her King

She will get married in her castle

She will play with her dolly

And she will have her Prince and her King and Queen

This was her King and Queen and her toy frog

Her frog was in a pond and it had a plum

And it was a smiley face frog

The End

© Tiny Sprig, April 2012