Paula talked about two key things to spark writing - writing about what you know, and writing about what you don't know - ie from your imagination, and then she demonstrated both through her poetry, from the observations of daily life (who amongst us doesn't have a cat who will find unlikely places to sleep?!) and from fantasy, riffing on a some very strange and possibly fearsome combination animals.
Paula showed us ways to get poetry "into the air", sharing it orally, generating rhythm and rhyme, word play and patterns and words that sing or pop, before putting it down on the page. She created "rules" about numbers of words or lines - and also allowed us to break them when we had a go at writing a poem ourselves.
Paula showed us a variety of ways to get into poetry reading and writing, from new entrants to secondary students level, and everyone went away with an anthology of ideas and renewed inspiration for sharing poetry in their classroom or library.
Now is the time to get your students to vote online for their Children's Choice category in the NZ Book Awards - and if they vote for Paula's The Letterbox Cat and other poems it will send a good message to writers, publishers and booksellers about the appeal of poetry to children and the viability of publishing and promoting it in New Zealand.
Visit Paula's rich treasure trove of poetry ideas and inspiration on The Poetry Box and The Poetry Shelf and explore the National Library Services to Schools poetry page too.
Do you have her books in the school library? A Treasury of NZ Poems for Children is a must have and here is a link to the Random House Teachers' Resource Kit with ideas for introducing this book to students.
Paula at Oromahoe School Library
Very many thanks to Paula for sharing her passion for poetry and for helping children to discover the same, and to the NZ Book Council, Lynette Hartgill, Programmes Manager for arranging Paula's Te Tai Tokerau tour. Thanks too, to the host schools for the SLANZA meetings - Marama Keyte at Manaia View School, and Annie McGlone, Principal and Liz Christensen, Librarian, at Oromahoe School.
