Chrissie Gittins – Children's Poetry Summit

Chrissie Gittins: Where Do You Get Your Ideas From?

Where Do You Get Your Ideas From?

‘Where do you get your ideas from for poems?’ This is the question I’m most often asked when visiting schools, festivals and libraries. Ideas come from many sources – conversations, reading, observation, memory, things children say, things that happen, and sometimes simply the sound of a word or its punning potential. An idea catches in my mind and becomes an obsession until it’s written into a poem.

I thought I’d outline a more detailed genesis of a couple of poems – my most recent and an older poem. As you may know April is National Poetry Month in America. NaPoWriMo, or National Poetry Writing Month, is an annual project which offers a daily prompt throughout April. www.napowrimo.net The prompt for Day 22 appealed to me – a proverb from a different language. Websites are listed with possibilities. I chose ‘There’s no cow on the ice’ – a Swedish proverb meaning there’s no need to worry.

I liked its the throw away, surreal quality and it seemed to hook into the current climate. I thought about other precarious animal situations and took it from there.

There’s No Cow On The Ice

(Swedish proverb)

There’s no cow on the ice,

there’s no horse on the tightrope,

there’s no elephant on the church spire,

there’s no hippopotamus in the pear tree.

So don’t worry about the cow falling through the ice,

or the horse slipping from the tightrope,

or the elephant sliding down the church spire,

or the hippopotamus flailing in the pear tree.

The cow is having tea in the meadow,

the horse is there beside her with fruit cake,

the elephant raises a cup with his elegant trunk,

the hippo has a custard cream to dunk.

The second poem began with a conversation with a friend. She’d visited HMS Victory in Portsmouth and told me about the young children, often orphans swept off the streets, who worked on eighteenth century sailing ships as powder monkeys. They kept the artillery on the gun decks stocked with gunpowder. I was gripped by how frightening this must have been and shocked to discover that before 1794 children as young at six went to sea. I visited the Caird Library at the National Maritime Museum to research further.

The poem won the Belmont Poetry Prize for individual children’s poems. This was especially pleasing as the shortlist was drawn up by teachers and the prizewinners were chosen by thirteen year old children. Coincidentally, after 1794, the minimum age for children working at sea was raised to thirteen.

The Powder Monkey

This is the moment I dread,

my eyes sting with smoke,

my ears sing with cannon fire.

I see the terror rise inside me,

coil a rope in my belly to keep it down.

I chant inside my head to freeze my nerve.

Main mast, mizzen mast, foremast,

belfry, capstan, waist.

We must keep the fire coming.

If I dodge the sparks

my cartridge will be safe,

if I learn my lessons

I can be a seaman,

if I close my eyes to eat my biscuit

I will not see the weevils.

Main mast, mizzen mast, foremast,

shot lockers, bowsprit, gripe.

Don’t stop to put out that fire,

run to the hold,

we must fire at them

or they will fire at us.

Main mast, mizzen mast, foremast,

belfry, capstan, waist.

My mother never knew me,

but she would want to know this –

I can keep a cannon going,

I do not need her kiss.

‘The Power Monkey’ is published in ‘Now You See Me, Now You …’, ‘Stars in Jars’ and ‘Michael Rosen’s A to Z : The Best Children’s Poetry from Agard to Zephaniah’.

Chrissie Gittins

Chrissie Gittins has had three of her five children’s poetry collections as Choices for the Children’s Poetry Bookshelf. Two were shortlisted for the CLiPPA Award. She won the Belmont Poetry prize and was a Manchester Children’s Literature Prize finalist. Her poems feature on Cbeebies and the Poetry Archive. She has judged the Caterpillar Poetry Prize and is a National Poetry Day Ambassador.

Children's Poetry Summit Members Post

A Christmas Poetry Feast!

Today we have no blog, but a feast of Christmas poems, chosen by or written by Children’s Poetry Summit members!

William Shakespeare, Chosen by Allie Esirie, from Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year, edited by Allie Esirie, Macmillan.

Christmas Morning

Last year

on Christmas morning

we got up really early

and took the dog for a walk

across the downs

It wasn’t snowing

but the hills were white with frost

and our breath froze

in the air

Judy rushed around like a crazy thing

as though Christmas

meant something special to her

The sheep huddled together

looking tired

as if they’d been up all night

watching the stars

We stood at the highest point

and thought about what Christmas means

and looked over the white hills

and looked up at the blue sky

And the hills seemed

to go on forever

and the sky had no bounds

and you could imagine

a world at peace

Roger Stevens

For Christmas

I give you a wooden gate

to open onto the world,

I give you a bendy ruler

to measure the snow that swirls,

I give you a prestidigitator

to make your woes disappear,

I give you a hopping robin –

he’ll be your friend throughout the year,

I give you a box of mist

to throw over past mist-akes,

I give you a slice of ice

to slide on mysterious lakes.

Chrissie Gittins, from The Humpback’s Wail.

Liz Brownlee, first published in Christmas Poems, Chosen by Gaby Morgan, Macmillan.

Christmas Blessing

Into our home
bring fairy lights
colour to shine
on darkest nights.

On the tree
hang figurines
absent friends
returned to me.

Wrapping paper
fills the room
generosity
in bloom.

On the table
the pudding flames
all winter long
its fire remains.

Lorraine Mariner

Christmas Day

It was waking early and making a din.

It was knowing that for the next twenty minutes

I’d never be quite so excited again.

It was singing the last verse of

‘O Come all Ye Faithful’, the one that’s

only meant to be sung on Christmas Day.

It was lighting a fire in the unused room

and a draught that blew back woodsmoke

into our faces.

It was lunch and a full table,

and dad repeating how he’d once eaten his

off the bonnet of a lorry in Austria.

It was keeping quiet for the Queen

and Gran telling that one about children

being seen but not heard.

(As if we could get a word in edgeways

once she started!)

It was ‘Monopoly’ and me out to cheat the Devil

to be the first to reach Mayfair.

It was, “Just a small one for the lad,”

and dad saying, “We don’t want him getting ‘tipsy.”

It was aunts assaulting the black piano

and me keeping clear of mistletoe

in case they trapped me.

It was pinning a tail on the donkey,

and nuts that wouldn’t crack

and crackers that pulled apart but didn’t bang.

And then when the day was almost gone,

it was Dad on the stairs,

on his way to bed,

and one of us saying:

“You’ve forgotten to take your hat off….”

And the purple or pink or orange paper

still crowning his head.

Brian Moses

Children's Poet

Chrissie Gittins: A Thoughtful Children’s Literature Festival, and a Thought

A Thoughtful Children’s Literature Festival, and a Thought

At a time when schools are struggling with budgets and ever more pressures it can be too much of a stretch to organise and pay for an author visit. A week-long festival in Oundle near Peterborough invites children to take part and engage with poets and writers.

I received an invitation to appear at the Kid Lit arm of the Oundle Festival of Literature from Helen Shair, the Festival Manager. The email informed me that coach costs would be subsidised so that children from all backgrounds and from a wide area would be able to attend.

Local schools are sent a programme of the authors on offer in good time for them to opt to attend. All the schools involved contribute towards the costs of the festival. I was pleased that Year 3 pupils from 8 schools (including 6 state schools) were expected for my morning event. In the afternoon I would perform at a second event held at a state school which could not afford the transport costs.

Helen sent out a list of my books to each school with a detailed description she had written about each one. This meant that children could decide well in advance which book they wanted to buy. It also meant that after I arrived to stay overnight with Helen, we spent some time attending to a series of cardboard boxes. The boxes were from each of the schools coming to the morning event and contained the children’s book orders. I set to and signed the ordered copies.

As I went up to bed I left Helen pondering on how to ice a coffee cake she’d made.

‘Who’s it for?’ I asked.

‘You,’ came the reply.

The excitement was palpable in the panelled Great Hall of Oundle School the next morning as the schools began to arrive. Helen has a band of volunteers who were on hand to help, and the local bookshop had set up a table at the back of the hall with additional copies of my books. The schools were allotted spaces which were drawn out with Helen’s chunky chalk. These spaces rotate year on year so that the same schools are not always at the front.

As promised in the programme we went on a tour of my poems. The audience joined in with sounds, actions, refrains and when I asked questions they contributed their own stories. When it came to the poem ‘My Dad’s More Embarrassing Than Your Dad’ the children had many suggestions for lines to contribute to a group poem. I wrote these on two adjacent flip charts. Apparently as the children left the hall some were chanting a line from the last poem I’d read. When the hall was empty and we could take a breath Helen served the coffee cake.

I read to KS2 in the afternoon school and this was just as well organised as the morning. Helen had driven to the school beforehand so that she knew just where it was. It was this forward planning and careful attention to detail which made visiting this festival such a gratifying experience. The schools in the area then enjoyed another four days of author visits.

In Scotland author visits are supported by the Scottish Book Trust’s Live Literature programme. They part-fund 1,200 events a year (funded by Creative Scotland) and fully fund a number of school residencies annually (privately funded). Author visits encourage reading for pleasure and inspire creative writing; they spark imaginations and encourage reluctant readers and writers; they make the link between a book and how it came into being. Perhaps if there was a similar initiative to Live Literature here in England, these valuable outcomes could be harnessed to benefit a great number of children.

Meanwhile happy reading and writing – with or without an author!

Chrissie Gittins

Chrissie writes poetry for children and adults, short stories and radio drama. Of her five children’s poetry collections three were Choices for the Poetry Book Society Children’s Poetry Bookshelf, and two were shortlisted for the CLiPPA Poetry Award. Her new and collected children’s poems Stars in Jars (Bloomsbury, 2014) is a Scottish Poetry Library Recommendation. She won the Belmont Poetry prize and was a finalist in the Manchester Children’s Literature Prize 2014. Her poems have been animated for Cbeebies TV and she appeared on BBC Countryfile with her fifth children’s poetry collection Adder, Bluebell, Lobster (Otter-Barry Books, 2016). She visits schools, libraries and festivals, she has recorded her poems for the Children’s Poetry Archive, and she is a National Poetry Day Ambassador.

Chrissie Gittins’ Website.