• I’ve been asked to help launch a small book of poetry, written by children in hospital, in September. Reading the book got my interest. It is laid out in sections that describe different types of poem. For someone who hasn’t read a poem since school, it’s a gentle introduction to poetry as well as an interesting conduit into the minds of bored, frightened, confused and surprisingly resilient children and teenagers who have been thrown into a situation we’d all rather not think about.

    I Have a couple on moths to prepare. I never leave this sort of thing to the last minute. I like to leave it simmering on the back boiler. Every now and then, like an unwatched cooking pot, ideas boil over and the pot needs attending too.

    Like this morning. Tidying up my desk, I came across the book and innocently wondered what was the last time I wrote a poem. All I could remember was my poem lashing out during the 2001 Foot and mouth crisis. At the time, I felt locked in, surrounded by inaccessible woods, while the smell of burning sheep filled the air for weeks. Never mind the rage I felt at the inept government handling of something that need never have happened.

    I think I got really quite depressed over that episode and the writing of the poem was when I managed to move on personally and get back to real life. That was probably the last serious poem I wrote. My sketchbooks, going back to when I was 13 or so, are crammed with serious poems. Mostly about thwarted or unrequited love. I’m not sure whether the helped at the time or prolonged the agony – which is probably what I was trying to do. There is nothing quite as perverse as a teenage, hormone-addled mind!

    I scanned my computer files to see if I could come up with anything more recent. Ah ha! I spent a whole day writing poems about shoes in February 2007! And they are quite fun. I’d almost forgotten them. They make me want to look at that idea I had a gain and see if it has legs (that I can put shoes on) – sorry!

    That’s a different kind of poetry. More intellectual, I suppose. Like a crossword puzzle or soduku, trying to get the words to fit in order and yet still make sense or maybe say something profound or better still, to try and make the reader laugh.

  • I was looking at weblogtoolscollection.com just now and looking at a page about Writer’s Block.

    Drat! What was I going to write about?

    Only Joking!

    When I started this new version of my blog I saw a link on my dashboard to nablopomo.ning.com – National Blog Posting Month – I’m not sure which nation it is. The site was encouraging bloggers to make a new entry every day – which is quite hard, actually. I started off floundering a little, trying to think of things to write. But After a month, I’m kind of getting into the swing. My blog is now my morning warm up.

    I’ve missed a couple of days, I think, but that may be due to my keenness to get the next day’s blog done today.

    I now find I have a little collection of stories that I’m thinking about rather that just making them up on the spur. These entries are usually a bit more readable. Firing off the top of your head doesn’t allow the idea to grow or be written in an organised way. So, I think I need to start making definite notes in my sketchbooks.

    I don’t think an online “to do” plugin would help me. I’d spend too long writing my to-do lists and would not be getting on with anything else.

  • PiratesIf you read my entry about School Stacking Chairs on Monday, you may wonder about the game of Pirates that I mentioned. I don’t know if everyone played it or if it was peculiar to my school, which was a boarding prep school in Surrey.

    It was Mr Turner, the new PE teacher, fresh from Loughborough College, Who spiced the game up and made us take more risks.

    The Wall bars were swung out and all the gym equipment was strewn around the floor. These were islands and were places of safety. If you “fell in the water” by putting your foot on the ground, you were drownded and out of the game.

    One boy was chosen to be the Pirate and he had to tag someone else. That person then became a pirate too. The winner was the last boy to be tagged – who then went on to be the pirate for the next game.

    Each time we played it, we became a bit more adventurous. Soon the we found it was possible to cling onto the window frame and inch your way around the room. The stacked chairs became a very dangerous haven. Too much rapid movement could bring them all crashing down on the floor.

    The favoured starting place was on the low beam that connected the two sets of wall bars. Here you were safe for ages, holding onto the ropes that dangled from the connecting bar at the top of the wall bars.

    Mt Turner was a great Teacher and soon soon turned us into fearless gymnasts. One day One of the Pirates just walked across the beam tagging everyone on the way. He’d learned to balance in Gym Club. The ropes were no longer safe. We took to shaking the beams and wall bars, to try and knock them off, but Mr Turner had trained us well. The best gymnasts could walk across a beam even though it was being shaken violently from side to side.

    The high beam then became the new reserve, but not for long. It must have been two meters high, but still one foolhardy boy decided to walk across it. I remember the room going silent. Everyone held their breath. The Pirate inched out along the beam. His quarry, was paralysed. He couldn’t believe his place of safety was being compromised. When the Pirate got his man, there was huge cheer. We knew the game had moved onto something more serious.

    The last hiding place was at the top of the ropes. The bravest would shin up to the top and hang on to the steel bar. A pirate, gaining control of the ropes, would fling the ropes around in the hope of dislodging his quarry. If the pirate climbed up the rope, the boy at the top would try to knock him off. It had become quite a serious game by now.

    It was when the ambulance came and got the third child with broken bones that the rules were changed, and the game petered out. It wasn’t fun anymore!

    Were we tougher? Probably not. Put today’s children in the same conditions and they would do exactly the same. Its our nature to push the boundaries until we get hurt. We used to have to learn by our mistakes. Now, Health and Safety make sure we can’t make the mistakes to learn the lessons from. All our risk taking is done in the safety of computer simulated environments these days.

    That’s probably why the banks crashed. All those bankers never played pirates when they were young. They’ve never learned that some mistakes have very real and painful outcomes. Playing with other people’s money on computer screens is not real life. It’s pretty much the same game as the guys who are playing games on the net to try and get your pin numbers. They are all playing to win your money.

    A bit more Rufty-tufty child’s play is what we need! Oh I haven’t mentioned British Bulldog 123! Maybe another time.