KENNING LIST
Kennings are two words stuck together. They are compound nouns and originated in Norse Mythology with examples like “Sky-Candle” for the Sun and “Whale-Road” for the Sea.
Kenning means “Knowing”. Sometimes a bit of guesswork is required to work out what they mean. This makes them feel like riddles! They are also a great way to invent your own metaphors.
In this example of a Kenning List poem, each line of two words gives a clue to what the poem is about.
How many tunes do we know
and how many songs can we sing?
Hearing those high notes and low
is making my heartstrings ring.
Our crickets sing faster or slow
with temperature ruling their timing.
Rubbing their wings like a bow
on some scratchy violin.
How many tunes do they know
and how many songs can they sing?
Their music will only flow
if it’s warm, beginning in spring.
Who are they chirruping to?
It’s strictly a lady’s thing.
Our cricket choir sings to woo
their girls with their carolling.
Artwork: Mr Charles Chirrup the Cricket and his Choir by Cindy Wider
Big Bird Emu
cannot fly.
Got long legs
and big brown eyes;
slender neck
and smiley beak;
stringy feathers,
mega feet.
Big Bird Emu
sits on nest.
Eight whole weeks,
no food no rest;
nearly faint
from heat and thirst;
wants those chicks
to hatch out first.
Shading babies,
outstretched wings,
eating grass
and insect things.
Eighteen months
‘til they’re full-grown,
big enough,
safe on their own.
Big Bird Emu
dedicated.
Caring love
for little babies.
Get too close
might make him mad,
‘cos he’s their
Big Bird Emu DAD!
Today is Father’s Day
Image from Pixabay
Sometimes the simplest
things are the best.
The magic of play
among kids and their pets
comes from the time
they spend with each other,
rather than whether
a toy lasts forever.
As children grow up,
they go through phases.
Peek-a-boo games
don’t last for ages.
But sticks and balls
always win the day
whenever it’s
doggy-time for play!
Artwork: FRIENDS by Karen Erasmus
Some eucalypts on desert scrub
politely share the skies,
creating lairs of dappled shade
where spinifex resides.
These mallee trees, like brollies
with their flattened canopies,
have many splaying slender trunks
at varying degrees.
Their knobbly base, a lignotuber,
helps them to survive,
should bushfire kill above the ground,
that mallee’s still alive.
Stored inside its bulbous base,
emergency supplies!
Water, food will grow new stems.
Our mallee tree revives.
Celebrating Science Week and Poetry Month 2026
Image from Pexels
LIMERICK
This five-line rhyming poem is often silly, funny or bawdy. Limericks have a waltzing rhythm (anapestic) and a rhyme scheme of AABBA. The third and fourth lines are shorter with 5 or 6 syllables, while all other lines are around 8 or 9 syllables (but sometime up to 12).
Limericks were made popular by Nonsense Poet Edward Lear back in the 1870’s. The word Limerick is the name of a town and a county in Ireland, but there is no record to say that this poetic style originated there.
Limericks are traditionally about people or places, but there are plenty of ways to break the rules and still have a Limerick style.
Eyes now closed,
here I lie
imagining things
within my mind’s eye.
A giant glass marble
with aqua swirls
that turns into
our tiny world
against a backdrop
of deep-dark space …
then next appears
your smiling face!
And guess what’s even crazier?
A thing called aphantasia.
Some people, even though they try,
simply don’t have a vivid mind’s eye.
Poem inspired from August picture prompt. Artwork: STARING AT CLOUDS by Jennifer Barrand
“Terrific!”
This word
is rather heroic.
Rooted in
TERROR,
it’s far from bucolic.
It started out
living with
FEAR and DREAD,
but chose to be
BRAVE and HAPPY
instead!
The Journey of a Word
Image from Pixabay
Geobacter like a bit
of current for their tea.
These microbes stay alive by
eating ELECTRICITY.
Connected by their hair-like strands
these wired-up microbes grow
and form a film of circuit-slime
that makes a current flow.
Feeding on electrons
can you guess what they excrete?
Electrons in – electrons out.
It’s weird. But rather neat!
Image from Pixabay
THE JOURNEY OF A WORD
Choose a word and find out where it came from and what it means. Some words have changed their meaning; some have added new meanings as time has passed. Can you explain this word and its journey of uses and meanings in a poem?
