I created this poetry workshop for Apple Day, which was held at the London Wildlife Trust's Centre for Wildlife Gardening in South London. I situated the workshop in a meadow and covered the surrounding fence with as many of the thousands of apple variety names as possible, as pictured below. The participating children had to take any five of these words that appealed to them and place them on a large sheet of paper. These words could then be rearranged until they gave birth to the germ of an idea, from which the poem was then built.
Children from age 3 to 13 were participating and I was impressed by their fearless approach to the exercise. Some fantastic poems were created and performed on the day, and we even learnt something about the amazing varieties of apples in the world.
Calvin's Poem
My best burger
Is the Spitzenburg Burger.
It's made with barbecue sauce and cherry.
It's very aromatic,
But it doesn't taste very nice.
Emily's poem
The beautiful delicious diamond
was licked by a man called Edward,
and he licked it so many times
that he had to go and see the doctor.
He was a wealthy man but
the beauty in himself
wasn't very nice.
was licked by a man called Edward,
and he licked it so many times
that he had to go and see the doctor.
He was a wealthy man but
the beauty in himself
wasn't very nice.
