My brain must have some spaces
Where secrets can be stored
And though I keep them hidden there
They cannot be ignored.
I think about them often,
Though no one else may know.
They come with me when I leave home,
No matter where I go.
I sometimes have to let them out –
They can be hard to store,
But when one secret is revealed
There soon may follow more.
To share them brings me great relief,
Since truth is hard to hide.
How special is a trusted friend
In whom we can confide!
Monty Edwards
Eight year olds
With needles in hand
Wool under arms
A little craft band
Sit in a circle
At lunch break
On the oval
Life is great
This craft of old
Will never die
With these mini grannies
Knitting on high
Jeanie Axton
Oh goose you fly so very high,
I wish that I could too.
Up up, up up, into the sky,
There’s nothing I can do.
I stand here wishing I’d grow wings,
I never hope for other things.
I dream at night that I’ve gained height,
And the earth is almost out of sight.
But here I am, stuck on the ground,
Never to be seen or found,
Up there with you oh goose,
For I am just a humble moose.
Oh moose as I look down below,
I notice you especially.
You graze the grass, you sip the lake,
You wander so majestically.
Your antlers have such symmetry,
They make a stunning crown.
Your fur hide, is a royal robe,
Magnificent though brown.
And since you simply cannot fly;
You’re never going to fledge,
I’ve bought a gift – an airline ticket,
With a dozen golden eggs.
So dream your dreams,
You never know just what you will achieve.
Many things are possible,
So long as you believe.
Louise McCarthy
There was shelter –
An upturned water tank
With an entrance hole —
My secret space
In the brittle summer bush
Where I’d hide,
Dark and bruised and splintered.
In those childhood days
I was an outlaw of sorts,
Travelling alone,
Not fitting anywhere,
Listening to cicadas throbbing
With song,
Beyond words,
Wanting nothing
But the arc of my mother’s arms
Dianne Bates
I’m standing proudly centre stage,
I grab the microphone.
The love from all those avid fans
rains down on me alone.
I launch into my favourite song,
I belt out the refrain.
The crowds are screaming out for more.
I take the mike again.
I’m really pumped, I raise the pitch,
I give it all I’ve got.
I’ve never known such warm applause,
I’m feeling pretty hot
until my mother calls my name
and interrupts my song:
“Your sister needs the bathroom now.
You’ve been there way too long!”
Get set to create! It’s poetry prompt time. I’m sure this image will inspire some wonderful poems about other eras but don’t lock yourself in to only one interpretation. What else can you come up with in response to the prompt?
Thanks to everyone who so enthusiastically supports this site with regular submissions. It couldn’t be what it is without your generous contributions. Don’t forget, if you’ve missed a prompt you can always catch up.
Please email your poems to me at teenawriter@gmail.com as a Word or Text file attachment and add a line or two about your writing process.
Happy writing!
Our senses are detectives
I hear a kettle boil and click.
I see the steam rise soft and thick.
I sense that kettle’s very hot.
Will I touch it? NO I’ll not.
I see green mould upon the fruit.
I touch it and it feels too soft.
I smell the scent of yucky rot.
Will I taste it? NO I’ll not.
I feel the raindrops on my skin.
I smell the dampness closing in.
I see the lightning on the hill.
Will I hear it? Yes I will.
I see the smoke and bonfire blaze.
I feel its warmth upon my face.
I hear the crackling spits and spills.
Will I smell it? Yes I will.
I hear a mossie’s whining flight.
It stops. And then I feel a bite.
Will I see it? Not at night.
Will I squash it? Yes I might!
Submitted in response to Poetry Prompt #27
Celia said: If asked to do something, people may say YES and then change their mind. I tend to say NO first-up, THEN change my mind! Which way round will it be for you?
Thanks to Stephen Whiteside for these excellent tips on writing poetry. Stephen’s collection of rhyming verse for children, ‘The Billy That Died With Its Boots On’ and Other Australian Verse, was published by Walker Books in 2014. In 2015, the book won a “Golden Gumleaf” award for “Book of the Year” at the Australian Bush Laureate Awards during the Tamworth Country Music Festival. Visit his website for more details.
I’m sure that I can eat an orange egg.
You do not have to plead. You needn’t beg.
I do not think that I have ever tried
An orange that’s been boiled, poached or fried.
Nor have I yet consumed an egg that’s raw,
Been neatly peeled, and sliced up into four.
An orange placed on toasted sourdough
Is not a taste sensation that I know.
I haven’t eaten egg as marmalade.
I’m not convinced that it would make the grade.
I know! I’ll mix the two into a goop,
And eat them as an eggy, orange soup!
Kristin lives in Adelaide in a house sort-of-near the sea with her husband, two sons, three turtles, four goldfish, five spiny leaf insects and a canary named Stephen Fly. Her poems have appeared in Tadpoles in the Torrens (Wakefield Press, 2013), and in the magazines Blast Off and Orbit. Kristin’s adult poetry collection, Paint the Sky, will be published by Ginninderra Press later this year.
Today Kristin tells us about her love of poetry and shares a little about her writing process…
I love writing poems; that’s what makes me a poet. I wouldn’t write poems if I didn’t love doing it. If you love writing poems then you are a poet too.
Many of my poems come from things I see or hear that make me laugh, or make me stop and say, “Wow! Isn’t that amazing! I want to tell people about that!” But, just because I think something is funny or amazing, it doesn’t mean other people will too. So I have to show how amazing or funny it is. One way to do this is to make up a story, with interesting characters and a setting and a beginning, middle and an end. I insert the amazing thing I saw into the story, and I write the story as a poem.
A few years ago, when I was travelling around northern Australia with my family, I was amazed by all the places where we saw frogs. We saw a tiny frog on the mirror in the girls’ toilets at a caravan park. We saw an even tinier frog siting behind the cold-water tap on the sink. And we saw a huge frog hiding under the toilet seat. I wanted to tell people about all these amazing places you could find frogs, so I decided to write a frog poem. To make my poem more interesting I developed a story about a child who has lots of frogs in her (or his) house. I pretended I was the child, and I was up at night, creeping around my house with a torch looking for the frogs. Here is the poem I wrote.
A Night of Frogs
A frog lives in our garden
in a pond beneath the tree.
I hear it croak at bedtime
as it says ‘goodnight’ to me.
A frog lives by our back door
on a post below the light.
I sneak outside to say ‘hello’
because it’s only there at night.
A frog lives in our laundry
in the corner of the wall.
I check when I come back inside
to make sure it didn’t fall.
A frog lives in our kitchen
in the space behind the sink.
It freezes in the torchlight
when I get myself a drink.
A frog lives in our bathroom
and I don’t know what to do
because it isn’t where it should be.
Yuk! It’s swimming in the loo!
My mum comes in the bathroom,
plants a kiss upon my head.
‘The frogs are fine just where they are
but you should be in bed!’
I also like to play with rhymes. On the same trip to northern Australia I was sitting on the edge of a beautiful, warm spring, dangling my feet in the water and watching my children swim, when a woman walked up with a black, stocky dog. I wanted to jump up and ran away because the dog looked so scary. But I made myself stay, because the water was lovely and warm, and told myself to be wary of the dog, but not scared. Immediately I realised I had a rhyme: “Some dogs are scary, you have to be wary.” I loved that rhyme! Over the next few weeks I thought of other rhymes for dogs; tiny dogs and jumpy dogs and busy dogs. I wrote them all in my notebook, then chose my favourite rhymes and arranged them in the order that sounded best. But the poem wasn’t finished until I came up with the ending. A good ending is one of the most important things in a poem.
Dogs
Some dogs are scary.
You have to be wary.
Some dogs are fat.
They could squash you flat.
Some dogs are tiny
and yappy and whiny.
Some dogs are old
and can’t do what they’re told.
Some dogs are jumpy.
They make me feel grumpy.
Some dogs are fast.
I just watch them run past.
Some dogs are busy
and rush round till they’re dizzy.
But my dog is great.
She’s my very best mate.
Australian Children’s Poetry 