Writing by the river

What a great request from Meg Doller to take poetry workshops across the age ranges to inspire an affinity an appreciation of the Campaspe river at Elmore!

So I took three age groups- prep to year 1 and even two four year olds through a rhythmic two word poem looking at different sensory surrounds of the river itself.  When I talked about the title for the poem one girl said 'Done!' and that became the title- very creative!

It was a windy day but perfect for writing.  Along the banks are the evidence of a wet winter and spring with plenty of grasses and plenty of seed heads for the children to really look at.

I liked to think of our writing as a slow savouring of all the nature around us- something we don't stop to appreciate enough and poetry is the perfect vehicle for this.

Well done to Meg for organising and to everyone who came and wrote!

Fruits of Children's Poetry Workshops

Well - poetry inspiration and poems written are the true outcomes
of poetry workshops.

In May I had a week visiting Ipswich and outlying schools with poetry workshops to create and inspire entries for the Ipswich Poetry festival.

Wow!  It was amazing to reach so many children- in different age groups to show them how easy and how satisfying it is to write a poem.


Thanks to Carol Moore at the Ipswich library and her dedicated committee for sending me this article.

Local newspaper report of photos of one of the sessions.



I love encouraging children and adults to write and in doing so to discover a bit more about themselves and the world around them.