You're a Poet: A blog by Sean Taylor

You’re a Poet is a book to help young children find ways into writing poetry. It features five stories about a young piglet poet, and scenery and characters beautifully brought to life by illustrator Sam Usher. Each story adventure is followed by prompts to inspire young children to write different kinds of poems. Author Sean Taylor tells us about how the book came to life.

Why did you write You’re a Poet?  

Once I got started, it felt like You’re a Poet wrote me…

I’d had a young (piglet!) poet character in my head for some years. And I wrote what became the opening story of the book, seeing it as a picture book text.

But my agent came up with seeds of ideas for a more substantial project. He thought the piglet poet story might be the first of several. He pointed to the nature book series I’ve written with ecologist Alex Morss – WINTER SLEEP, BUSY SPRING, WILD SUMMER and AUTUMN FEAST. Those books contain both imaginative story and thought-provoking information sections.

I planted my agent’s idea seeds, and gave the book some imaginative space in order to find out what would grow.

The result was five stories about Piglet the young poet, with five accompanying poetry challenges. Once I’d got the shape for the book, the writing came easily. (That’s what I mean when I say, it felt as if it wrote me!) I’ve been running poetry-writing workshops in primary schools for over 30 years. The weight of that experience gave me momentum. And just as important was my heartfelt belief in the value of writing poetry for young children.

How do you imagine children using You’re a Poet?

Story is a great engager. Children are drawn into narrative. We all are. (I’m with those who say we don’t deserve the name ‘homo sapiens’ - wise humans - but we DO deserve the name ‘homo narrans’ - storytelling humans!) And story is the way into You’re a Poet.

The five narratives in the book are warm, lively, inviting tales of childhood dramas and delights. And I want readers to be drawn into Piglet’s poetic adventures then led, by the stories, to the poetry challenges.

The way that Piglet’s poetry develops across the book is exactly the way I look to take young writers during my writing workshops. At first, Piglet writes simple, descriptive poems. Then he experiments with slightly more complicated ways of making description and music from words. And by the end of the book, he’s coming up with a poem that speaks of his own life and his own feelings.

It's all simple and doable. But that’s a remarkable journey to go on.

If young children can travel from simple description to using words that speak from the heart, that’s no mean feat. It’s a step towards becoming individuals who can express their feelings, their needs and their beliefs.

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How about primary school teachers? How can they use the book?

To be honest, I’d like primary school teachers to engage with the book in exactly the same way as young readers!

If they feel invited-in by the stories and engaged by the poetry challenges, they’ll be in the perfect (creatively enthusiastic) frame of mind to share the book with children. Simple as that!

Can you say more about your belief in the value of writing poetry for young children?

Poetry is a brilliant way for beginner writers to develop their skills. There’s no right or wrong with it. And because poetry has less rules than other forms of writing, it’s a freeing way for children to extend their writing.

Poetry is heightened language, and being able to use heightened language is a helpful (sometimes powerful) tool. We use it to speak impactfully, persuade, tell stories, express feelings, and communicate what we need to tell others. Writing poetry trains children in these skills.

Trying their hands at writing poetry also helps children to look closely at, listen to, and reflect on the world around them. Painting poem pictures with words naturally makes you do this. It doesn’t matter if a child is writing a simple description of a muddy puddle (as Piglet does at the start of You’re a Poet), or if they’re expressing something truthful from their heart (as Piglet does at the end of the book), poem-writing makes you pay close attention to the world around you. And in times when children’s attention is fractured by the habits of their screen-lives, that’s a precious thing.

So you see writing poetry as simpler than other kinds of writing young children do, and also more rewarding?

Poetry is playful and fun. In his book Behind the Poem, Robert Hull says, “The one thing that teachers can see more clearly than anyone about children writing in school is the pleasure they take in writing. That pleasure represents the thrust, the motive power that many teachers rely on to teach with - there is nothing for the potter’s fingers to shape til the wheel is moving.”

Learning is enhanced when there’s enjoyment in it. Think about the child who loves painting, or playing drums, or doing surprising science experiments. The pleasure feeds positively into the learning. Poetry can work this way for young writers. It’s a way of breaking out of the mindset which says writing is a chore, like having to tidy your bedroom! This quotation from American author and teacher, Martín Prechtel, puts it well: “Poetry is the most honey-tasting form of language.”

The existence of oral children’s poetry and nursery rhymes all round the world is a sign of age-old cultural wisdom that hearing poetry is helpful to young children. Given it’s such a freeing, nourishing, and enjoyable thing, should we be encouraging children to write poetry from a young age, as well?

I came up with You’re a Poet because I’m sure we should!

You’re a Poet was published on 1st August 2024, by Walker Books. Sean Taylor leads poetry-writing workshops for young writers. He also offers a workshop called WELCOME TO POETRY, to help primary school teachers grown more confident about using poetry in the classroom. To find out more contact Sean at: [email protected].