Joshua Seigal – Children's Poetry Summit

Joshua Seigal: EMC Poetry Playlist, Contemporary Voices for the Classroom

I would like to draw everyone’s attention to a new publication from the fantastic English and Media Centre in London. EMC Poetry Playlist: Contemporary Voices for the Classroom is a collection of 130 poems for 11-16 year olds. This blog post cannot really be called a review, as I am not impartial – I feel extremely honoured to have a poem included in the anthology, alongside famous writers and some of my own poetic heroes like Simon Armitage and Michael Rosen. I’d just like to say a few words about why I think the anthology is indispensable in the KS3 classroom, and to pick out a few of my favourite poems.

As well as the sheer variety of styles and themes on display, it is notable that none of the poems seems, in any obvious sense, to have been written for 11-16 year olds. By this I mean that the poems, whilst chosen for their accessibility to young people, have an appeal to everyone. In some sense I do not believe there is such a thing as ‘children’s poetry’; there is simply poetry, some of which might (or might not) appeal to children. The best children’s poetry always goes beyond this narrow remit, and this is very much borne out in EMC Poetry Playlist.

https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/publications/emc-poetry-playlist-contemporary-voices-for-the-classroom

A unique feature of the anthology is that individual poets were invited to curate their own ‘playlists’. These poets are all well known for their work with young people, and include Jacob Sam-La Rose, my MA mentor at Goldsmiths College. Each of these poets also comments on their selection, homing in on a specific poem and explaining why they chose it. Of particular interest was Hollie McNish’s choice of ‘Smile’ by Maria Ferguson. The poem tackles something that is a perennial bugbear of mine: when people tell other people to ‘smile’. Ferguson concludes her piece with ‘And maybe I can’t, you know?/ Maybe I can’t.’ McNish says of the poem: “It reminds me it’s ok to be serious about things and that you’re not a ‘killjoy’ if you don’t giggle or smile on demand.” This is a message I would definitely have been grateful to receive as a young person.

Another piece that captured my attention was ‘The Falcon to the Falconer’ by Jonathan Steffen. The poem expresses a desire on the part of the bird to be free – ‘unleash me from your hand’. Repetition is used to great effect, mirroring the return of the bird to its handler, and some of the language is sumptuous. The alliteration in ‘I will lance the light for you’, coupled with the sibilance in the word ‘lance’, reflects the direct, quickfire flight of the bird, and the final lines, ‘O, give me back my wings/That they may bring me back to you’, emphasises that, all along, the relationship between the falcon and the falconer is one of symbiosis and mutual respect.

Talking of birds, Caroline Bird has two cracking poems in the book. Both are surreal, funny and accessible in equal measure. I especially enjoyed ‘Megan Married Herself’, which is a paean to self-love. The image of a woman marrying herself, accompanied by all the trappings of a traditional wedding, is highly comic, but carries an important message for young people, namely to be as devoted to themselves and their own wellbeing as to any putative partner. Especially poignant, I think, is the remark of one of the wedding guests to himself: “I’m the only one who will truly understand you”. After all, as Rabbi Hillel famously remarked, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?”

Joshua Seigal

Joshua Seigal is an internationally renowned poet, performer and educator. His first book with Bloomsbury, I Don’t Like Poetry, was nominated for the Laugh Out Loud Book Awards in 2017, an award Joshua subsequently won in 2020 with his collection I Bet I Can Make You Laugh. Joshua was also the recipient of The People’s Book Prize in 2022, and has performed at schools and festivals around the world, including the Edinburgh Book Festival, the Cheltenham Literature Festival, and the Dubai Literature Festival. He is an Official Ambassador for National Poetry Day, and has been commissioned to write and perform for the BBC. He can normally be found running poetry workshops and performances in schools, either online or in real life. www.joshuaseigal.co.uk

Children's Poet

Joshua Seigal: Poets and Social Media

With Twitter in the news a lot lately, and having been an avid Twitter-botherer for the last decade or so, I thought now might be a good time to share some reflections regarding my experience of the platform. These reflections are personal, but they might nonetheless be relatable to those of my fellow poets who are on social media.

For me, Twitter has been an indispensable way of making connections with other poets, as well as with teachers and other educators. As a consequence of this, I have been able to develop my network of contacts, and to get a good deal of paid work. As an introvert, Twitter has also been an extremely useful way of putting myself ‘out there’ in a way that feels manageable to me, and in a way that I wouldn’t be able to do in a room full of actual, physical people. It has given me the chance to say what I want to say, and also to delete it a few moments later. One can’t do that at a party!

Twitter has also been a highly useful way of garnering an audience for my poems. If I write a poem that I deem to be half decent, I will stick it on Twitter and see what kind of reception it gets. The level of response can be a useful barometer for whether or not a poem actually is any good, and can thus serve as a kind of informal feedback. Many poets might justifiably be hesitant to give their work away for free, but I look at it as being akin to a free sample, like those mini blocks of cheese with cocktail sticks you get at the supermarket – if someone likes a poem, they might be more likely to go and buy some of my books.

However, there is definitely a sinister side to social media, and as a poet this affects me in both a personal and professional capacity. Twitter is a great way of putting myself in the shop window, but sometimes it seems as though tweeting, and accruing likes and retweets, is the driving force behind the production of the poems. I can find myself writing with one eye on producing good work, but with the other eye keenly on how and when to put it out on the socials. I sometimes fall into the trap of measuring my self worth in terms of what kind of response my work gets, and if a piece doesn’t get the reception I think it ‘deserves’, well, I don’t lose sleep but it can often be a huge downer. One time I wrote a poem that, for personal reasons, I knew I could never put online at all. This almost made the poem feel worthless, which of course should not be the case.

There is also the dangerously addictive dopamine hit whenever someone follows me, or whenever a poem does get a response. This feels good, but is it a substitute for a real, physical social interaction? Is it as useful as actual money in the bank? Of course not. But sometimes social media can make it feel as though it is. It has the tendency to warp our perception of reality, and if we are not careful we may find ourselves living in a simulacrum.

What advice would I give to fellow poets, then? I would say to embrace social media (I use Twitter mainly, but obviously there are many options) but with extreme caution, lest your social, spiritual and creative wellbeing suffer.

Joshua Seigal

Joshua Seigal is an internationally renowned poet, performer and educator. His first book with Bloomsbury, I Don’t Like Poetry, was nominated for the Laugh Out Loud Book Awards in 2017, an award Joshua subsequently won in 2020. Joshua was also the recipient of The People’s Book Prize in 2022, and has performed at schools and festivals around the world

Please visit his website: www.joshuaseigal.co.uk, and FOLLOW HIM ON TWITTER: @joshuaseigal

Children's Poet

Joshua Seigal: What is Children’s Poetry?

Ah, that old chestnut. Many gallons of academic ink have doubtless been spilled in the attempt to proffer some kind of answer. I say ‘academic’, because a satisfactory crack at the question invites a labyrinthine discussion about what poetry is, and what ‘children’ means, and so forth. What I have to offer here will not be an academic discussion; rather, I will adumbrate some thoughts based on my ongoing writing of two poetry collections, one ostensibly for grown-ups, the other to be marketed to children.

The main thing I am learning is that the boundary between children’s poetry and other poetry is incredibly murky. It can’t really be delineated by an appeal to theme as, in my experience, many adults appreciate poetry that deals with light-hearted themes, whilst children can certainly access poetry that tackles big, deep issues. Nor will an appeal to style suffice: children often love jaunty rhythms and rhymes, but then so do plenty of adults.

One might think that the two types of poetry make use of different lexicons, and that ‘grown up’ poetry uses words and allusions that children wouldn’t understand. This may be true in some cases, but the pair of manuscripts that I am currently working on subverts this expectation somewhat: in the children’s book I go all out with my vocabulary, and the introduction even includes a recommendation that children read the book with a dictionary, or Google, ready to hand. In the grown-up book I very much aim to pare down my vocabulary, and to resist the inclination to use a fancy word where a common one will do. I sort of aim to encourage children to reach for the stars, whilst bringing adults firmly down to earth.

Ultimately, I think that whether or not a particular piece counts as a ‘children’s poem’ comes down to context. Notice how I very deliberately used the word ‘marketed’ in the opening paragraph. In many cases, this seems to be the determining factor. If you show a poem to children, and they get something out of it, then it is a children’s poem. Similarly with adults. Indeed, there are a couple of poems that I hope to use in both the children’s and grown-ups’ books. I know that children and adults might well take slightly different things from the poems, but I hope they will each take something. Here, then, is a poem that appears in both collections.

I Found It

on his desk last thing

on the Friday afternoon, and assumed

it was from his kids, or wife.

Glancing inside, however, I read –

Happy Birthday Jack, Love Mum.

Only then did I see him in a different light,

the crumpled trousers and wonky tie

no longer those of a teacher

but of someone’s child.

His name was Jack and he had a mum,

a mum who gave him birthday cards.

I figured he must have put it there

to remind himself, through the fog

of our cruelty, of the lighthouse of her love.

We, all of us, are children –

I touched this truth and felt it burn

as I snuck from the classroom

out into the sun.

Is this a ‘children’s poem’? Well, ‘[w]e, all of us, are children’; children are hopefully elevated by the knowledge that, poetically speaking, they are no more ‘little’ than adults; adults meanwhile have their ‘grown up’ pretensions quashed. Poetry is the leveller.

Joshua Seigal

Joshua Seigal is a poet, performer and workshop leader based in London. His latest collection, Welcome To My Crazy Life, is published by Bloomsbury, and he was the recipient of the 2020 Laugh Out Loud Book Award. Please visit http://www.joshuaseigal.co.uk for more info.

Children's Poet

Joshua Seigal: Poetry and Philosophy

I often tell people that one of the things that attracts me to poetry is that poems tend to be short. In 2011, I completed a 30,000 word thesis as part of my Philosophy postgraduate degree. The thesis was edited down from about 50,000 words. That is not short. Aside from the obvious matter of length, there is the corollary issue of time. One should not underestimate the time it can take to complete a poem, but it is much shorter than it takes to write a philosophical tract. This suits me because I tend to work in short, intense bursts. In part, my deciding to dedicate myself to poetry can be seen as something of a reaction against my previous life in academia.

Another thing I am often asked about is the extent to which my background in philosophy influences my poetry. One can take this at least two ways: do I write about the same sorts of things? And how similar is the writing process? Let’s take each of these in turn. Philosophy purports to concern itself with the deepest questions: Why are we here? What is reality? How can we come to know reality? When I first started to write poetry for children my main aim was to provide a bit of a giggle. This, again, was probably a reaction against having to tackle the ‘big questions’ in my day job. However, as the pandemic has progressed my poetry has certainly taken on a philosophical edge. In fact, I have probably started to think about the big issues with more gusto than I ever did as an academic.

How, though, have I been tackling these issues? This brings us onto the second question, regarding the extent to which writing poetry and writing philosophy are similar. For me, there are huge differences, and it is these differences that attract me to the former rather than the latter. When Philosophers write, they tend to lay out an argument meticulously, examine it from all angles, consider counterarguments, and advance slowly and cautiously toward a conclusion. And the conclusion in any one essay is almost always nothing more than a tiny grain of sand added to the great mound of what has gone before. Indeed, most of the work I studied was concerned with minute details of the big issues, rather than the issues themselves as a whole. I think this was one of the things that frustrated me: Anglophone Philosophers, in what is known as the ‘Analytic’ tradition, often tend to be details people, rather than big-picture people.

As a poet, I don’t look for conclusions, and I don’t progress by way of ‘argument’. I try to open up a snapshot, or a window, through which the big issues can be viewed, however dimly. I proceed by way of allusion and metaphor, or else I simply tell it as I see it; in neither case is the goal to convince someone to adopt my point of view, and in neither case am I trying to add anything to a collective body of knowledge. I am simply adopting and describing a point of view. The point of view might pertain to issues like love, goodness, knowledge and truth. Or I may simply be describing how my cat was sick on the rug. I am pleased I did my time as an academic, and I am even more pleased now to not be doing it. And given that I am not doing it, I am going to leave this ‘essay’ without an elegant conclusion.

(please vote for me in the People’s Book Prize. It takes twenty seconds: https://peoplesbookprize.com/summer-2021/yapping-away/)

Joshua Seigal

Children's Poet

Joshua Seigal: Animal Poetry

Animals are great, aren’t they? So much variety; so many opportunities for writing. Since my family got our first pet twelve years ago (a belligerent Lhasa Apso dog named Winston) I have been a big animal lover, and many of my poems feature cats, dogs, and even the odd lemur. What I’d like to do in this blog is share two ideas for writing animal-based poetry, suitable for younger and older children respectively.

If I Were/I Would…

If I were a lion

I would prowl to school baring sharpened fangs

If I were a dog

I would gobble my delicious dinner out of a gleaming golden bowl

If I were a monkey

I would swing from tree to tree in my lush, green garden

If I were a shark

I would glide delicately through a sparkling swimming pool…

I never did get round to finishing this poem. Why not ask pupils to have a go at imagining themselves as different animals, and thinking what they would do if they were to assume animal form. Either as shared or individual writing, children can use the structure ‘If I were/I would’ to continue the poem above. Particular attention should be paid to the use of powerful verbs (the lion doesn’t walk, she prowls) and adjectives (‘lush’, ‘sparkling’). This is a really simple way of writing a fun animal poem that can be taken in any number of different directions. And remember: the children are considering not merely what animals themselves do, but what they (the children) would do if they were an animal.

When I Met…

Ask students to close their eyes and think of an emotion. Next, ask them to imagine: if their emotion was an animal, what would it be? As a writing warm up, give the students five minutes or so to take some notes describing their animal, paying particular attention to the five senses. If it helps them, they can draw and label pictures. Once each student has gathered a bank of ideas, you can share the following as-yet unpublished poem of mine:

The Tiger

doesn’t want you

to look into her eyes.

You can marvel at her stance

and the way her tongue flicks

across her fangs;

you can cower at her claws

and the stripes that streak

like poison down her back;

you can even draw up close

to catch her bitter breath

but the tiger doesn’t want you

to look into her eyes

for

should you do so

you might see nothing more

than another little housecat

blinking

back at you.

In this poem, the tiger represents fear. You can have a discussion: what does the poet’s encounter with the tiger say about what happens when fear is confronted? What literary techniques are used in the poem? In the light of the poem, and using their ideas from the warm up, students can have a go at writing a poem in which they come face to face with their animal. If it helps, they can use the phrase ‘When I met…’ as a sentence starter. Here are some of the intriguing animals students have met during my workshops:

The crow of jealousy

The elephant of sadness

The donkey of shyness

The peacock of joy

So there you have it: two ideas for creating animal-based poetry. These ideas constitute bare bones, and I am intrigued to see the different ways workshop leaders and students alike are able to flesh them out. And remember: please visit my website for lots of free poetry and videos!

Joshua Seigal

Poet and Educator

Joshua Seigal: “So How Did You Get Into Poetry, Then?

This is one of the most common questions I get asked when I visit schools. It is not an easy question to answer, and I am tempted to say that I simply ‘fell into’ it. But this is a cop out. My journey can best be adumbrated by my encounters with five poets.

Michael Rosen

Michael visited my primary school when I was around 8. I remember being captivated by his performance in assembly, where he acted out his poems and really brought them to life. I bought his book Don’t Put Mustard in the Custard, and we listened to its accompanying casette in the car every day on the way to school for about a year! I wasn’t necessarily inspired to write my own poetry at this stage, but the kernel of Michael’s visit obviously lodged in my mind. Later on, Michael taught on my MA at Goldsmiths, and was good enough to write an endorsement for the cover of my first book with Bloomsbury.

Niall O’Sullivan

I didn’t really begin writing poetry until my late teens. I had studied Larkin for A Level and my initial efforts were an embarrassing attempt to ape him. During my first year at UCL I discovered the Poetry Cafe in Covent Garden, which has a weekly open mic night hosted by Niall O’Sullivan. For a couple of years I regularly stood up and read my poems there, and was furthermore exposed to a wide variety of performance and writing styles. Niall hosted the night with humour and panache, and it was by attending these evenings that I developed my chops as a performer and (I hope) a humorist.

Neal Zetter

Neal helped me turn a hobby into what is now a career. I first came across his name in the Evening Standard, where he spearheaded a literacy campaign in 2012. He was described as a ‘comic poet who works in schools’, and then it hit me: this could be a proper job! I emailed Neal for some advice, and he responded with such warmth and encouragement that I shall be forever grateful. Heck, we are good friends now, and I even invited the man to my wedding. We are also poetical collaborators, and have our second joint book out with Troika in 2021/2.

Brian Moses

I took a humorous children’s poetry show to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2012, where I met Brian. I foisted a copy of my first, self-published book into his hands, and asked whether he might help me find a proper publisher. I am extremely thankful for the advice he gave me. He said that my comic poetry was all well and good, but to concentrate on serious, emotional and heartfelt themes as well. I have since tried to synthesise a broad range of styles and feelings into my repertoire, and Brian’s advice has undoubtedly helped me grow as a writer.

Roger Stevens

Roger gave me my first publication in an anthology and invited me on the wonderful ‘poets’ retreat’ in 2014, where I met many other wonderful poets too numerous to mention. In his bounteous munificence, he also put my name forward to a bunch of editors he knew, which helped secure my first book deal with Bloomsbury in 2016. So now I was a poet writing and performing in a variety of styles, who both made a living working in schools and had a proper publishing deal to boot! I could not have made it this far without the aforementioned poets.

Joshua Seigal

Please visit www.joshuaseigal.co.uk for more info.

Children's Poet and Educator

Joshua Seigal: Poetry Workshops in Informal Settings

Poetry Workshops in Informal Settings

Most of my working days are spent running poetry sessions in schools. Whilst not adhering to the same strictures as a school lesson, there is nonetheless a degree of formality: children are normally sat at their tables, are expected to be quiet, and are generally overseen by their teacher as well as myself.

However, one of my happiest times as a poet was when I ran a series of very informal lunch clubs at a girls’ secondary school in Newham, East London. I worked at the school as Poet-in-Residence from 2014-17, having initially been placed there as part of my MA at Goldsmiths. The lunch club was attended by ‘vulnerable’ students. These were students who, for one reason or another, struggled in mainstream educational settings. The point of the club was to introduce them to poetry and creative writing, whilst at the same time providing a safe space for them to spend their lunch break on a Wednesday. Students were ‘invited’ to attend, rather than required to, and throughout the years numbers fluctuated. At one point they reached double figures (perhaps because of the biscuits on offer), but there was a hardcore of perhaps three or four students who attended every week.

I normally started off the sessions by reading a poem or two, on a different theme each week. Students could then respond to the poem with their own writing and/or drawing, whilst chatting with their friends and eating their lunch. I began by approaching the club somewhat like a regular lesson: I gave the students specific targets to aim for, and often provided them with models or scaffolding for their writing. However, as time went on and it became clear who was dedicated to the club and who wasn’t, my approach changed. I began reading a poem and then letting students respond however they liked. Sometimes they produced their own poetry, and sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes their chat was relevant to the theme I’d introduced, and sometimes it wasn’t. The whole experience was joyous, and the point of it was the sense of community, rather than any clearly defined written or academic outcomes.

Once the group was really well established, I sometimes didn’t even read a poem at all. I just introduced a concept or a theme, or gave them a sentence to complete, and let the students do with it what they wanted. Here is a poem using the sentence starter ‘Love is’, that was produced by a girl in Year 9 with learning difficulties:

Love Is

Love is fireworks and butterflies

Love is feelings

Love you can’t touch

Love is dumb

Love comes in different cultures

Everyone loves someone

Love is always red

You can’t see love even if you are wearing glasses

Love is wind

Love is blind

Throughout my time running the club, many similarly profound and beautiful poems were produced, and they normally arrived in the absence of the aforementioned modelling and scaffolding. The crucial factor seemed to be the degree to which the club developed that sense of community and cohesion.

So what advice would I give to someone who wanted to run poetry sessions in informal settings? I think the key is that these sessions are best developed across a period of time, so that workshop participants become well accustomed to each others’ company. The second point is related: any written outcomes should be viewed as secondary to the primary purpose of fostering that sense of safety and community. Thirdly, once the importance of these outcomes is deemphasised, very powerful and important writing can, paradoxically, result.

Joshua Seigal