HeadSpace Creative Reading Bulletin 2

Poetry (October 2009)

Welcome to the second of our Creative Reading Bulletins.
In recognition of the fact that it was recently National Poetry Day, this bulletin will
focus primarily on using poetry to engage young people in HeadSpace. It includes
tips on booking poets and organising poetry slams, as well as recommended
poems and exercises to use with your groups. It also includes information about
our poetry competition which we’re running in conjunction with Faber.
Every month, we’ll have a reading group section and this month’s includes notes
on Sophie McKenzie’s The Medusa Project: The Set-Up as well as offers of free
books for your reading group.
I hope you find this bulletin useful. Please let me know if you do (or don’t) so that I
know whether to keep churning these things out.
Happy reading and writing,
Beverley

I write because I love the way

The ink flows on the page
The tiny curves and flicks and falls
Of love and laughs and rage
The flow of life from mind to pen
That soothing whirl of thought
A small display of what might be
If dreams were ever caught.

Jennifer Durrant
Age 16
Why poetry?
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking of poetry as something that’s potentially off-
putting to young people. Young people themselves might pull faces when the subject is
raised and even those of us who love poetry can probably remember teachers who made
it less than inspiring. Those memories and experiences can prevent us from broaching the
subject with our groups of young people.
In fact, it’s been my experience that poetry is one of the best ways to involve disengaged
young people in reading and literature. The reasons for its success are obvious when you
think about it:

• Poetry is bite-sized making it ideal for young people with low literacy levels or
short attention-spans

• Poetry often works best when listened to – making it more accessible and dynamic
that the written word alone, and also a more communal experience than reading
a novel

• People have a habit of turning to poetry in times of trouble and writing poetry is
therapeutic; some of the most prolific poets I’ve worked with have been young
people in care, in homeless hostels and in drug rehab

• Poetry is only one step removed from song lyrics which almost all young people
are familiar with and responsive to

• Poetry works well as a multi-media art – you can illustrate it, perform it, animate
it

• There is a huge poetry culture amongst young people which has blossomed over
the past few years under pseudonyms such as ‘spitting’, ‘battling’, ‘hip hop’,
‘rapping’, ‘emceeing’, ‘rhyming’, ‘freestyling’ etc All poetry by another name and
massively appealing to young people.
Whether young people are reading it, writing it or spitting it, poetry is big news and
something we could all be engaging with.
Using poetry as part of your reading group
Reading groups have a wide range of formats and there’s nothing to stop you having a
whole reading group that’s devoted to the reading and writing of poetry. If this is too
much for your group, why not integrate poetry into your standard reading group? You
could look at a whole collection of poetry in place of a novel one week, use poems as
fillers during quiet moments or write some poetry as a break from reading activities.
Below are some suggested poetry activities that work well with young people.
Reading ideas
• Have a ‘bring your favourite poem week’. Start things off by introducing the young
people to your favourite poem. Haven’t got a favourite poem? Time to start reading!
Two of my favourite poems are ‘The Minister for Exams’ by Brian Patten and
‘Suitcases and Muddy Parks’ by Lemn Sissay. You can hear Brian Patten read his
poem in the Children’s Poetry Archive

2
 http://www.poetryarchive.org/childrensarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=5921. Lemm
Sissay reads Suitcases and Muddy Parks at
www.lemnsissay.com/recordings/03SuitcasesAnd MuddyParks.mp3

• Listen to poets reading their work on the Poetry Archive and Children’s Poetry
Archive (see above link). Discuss whether poems work better when read or listened
to.

• Think of interesting ways to display poems and to engage the public’s interest. You
could peg poems on a washing line, hang them from trees, float them down rivers or
write them in coloured chalk on the pavement outside HeadSpace.

• Illustrate some poems and make promotional postcards for HeadSpace. You can
easily do this using software such as photoshop.

• Cut up a poem into lines and ask the group to try to put it back together. Rhyming
poems work best as there are more clues to help reassemble it. Poems I’ve used
regularly include Philip Larkin’s ‘This be the verse’ (good shock value because of the
use of the F word) and ‘Streemin’ by Roger McGough but any short rhyming poem
works well. Poems by Lemn Sissay and Benjamin Zephaniah or Wendy Cope can be
good ones.

• Have some poetry fridge magnets in your HeadSpace (or cut up some poems
yourself) and encourage your group to make up new poems.

• Read poems on a theme. You could link them to a time of year: Valentine’s love
poems, Halloween scary poems, war poems at times of remembrance etc

• Make the most of the link between spoken word poetry, written poetry and music by
asking people to bring along recordings and/or print-outs of their favourite lyrics.
Discuss them as you would a poem. What makes the lyrics work? Which words or
phrases do you like? Why is it catchy or moving?

• Focus on poets and spoken word artists who are also hip-hop or rap artists. Tupac
Shakur (famously shot in a drive-by shooting) wrote a book of poetry called The Rose
That Grew from Concrete which goes down well with young people. Other poets such
as Lemn Sissay, Benjamin Zephaniah, Michelle Scally Clarke and Rommi Smith are
primarily poets but their writing has overlaps with music and rap music. Young
people may know a lot more than you do about this area once you get them talking.
Don’t be afraid to start them off and see where it takes you.

• Illustrate poems or song lyrics as comic books using comic book software or your
group’s own drawing skills with one line for each image.

• Record your poems to music. Chesterfield young readers and writers put their work
about books and libraries to music. You can hear the result here:
http://groupthing.org/groups/headspace-authorities/works/316

• Look for ‘found’ poetry and upload it onto the Southbank’s GPS (Global Poetry
System) website. Poetry is on toilet walls, in pubs, on buildings and generally all over
the place. I found this one on my local bookshop’s window this week:

3
 There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir
We must rise and follow her when from every hill of flame
She calls and calls each vagabond by name.
Bliss Carman
Writing Poetry
Writing poetry is often more successful than reading poetry with young people because
of the interactive element and the fact that young people often like to express
themselves.
If you’re not confident in encouraging young people to write poetry then engage the
services of a professional poet to help you to run some workshops (see below).
On the other hand, it shouldn’t take too much to get your young people writing. Here are
simple ideas that you can use with your group that you should be able to lead yourself. If
you’re not confident, have a go at them yourself and you’ll see how easy it can be.
You are …poems
Write short poems about people you love or hate by likening them to a range of items e.g.

A colour You are red, furious and bold,

A day of the week My Saturday night on the town.
A game You’re as mysterious as Cluedo,
An item of furniture Yet solid as an old armchair.
A weather condition You’re a rainbow’s hope on a gloomy day,
A holiday destination You’re non-stop Ibiza
An item of clothing You’re low-cut jeans
A food And a Friday-night pizza in front of the tv.

Warm up by playing it as a guessing game about celebrities or asking young people questions
about themselves e.g. if you were an animal, which one would you be?

Acrostics
Take a name of a person or a group and write sentences or simple words to describe it
beginning with each letter of the name e.g.

Helping
Everyone
Achieve.
Designing
Spaces.
Playing
Around.
Choosing
Everything

You can do better, I’m sure.

4
This worked brilliantly with a group of young mums I once worked with who spent weeks writing
acrostics about their babies then illustrating and even framing them.

‘Found’ poetry
Found poetry can be stuff you’ve stolen and reworked from other people or literally
poems that are found in the landscape. Using other people’s words and working as group
can make poetry less intimidating. Try this….. Everyone write for 5 minutes without
stopping on a particular theme e.g. autumn. Then each person underlines a word or
phrase from their own writing that they particularly like. Read the selected words out for
everyone and see if you can put them together as one poem.
Limerics
There was a young woman from HeadSpace
Who thought that it should be a red place
She spray-painted the walls
The librarian was appalled
And all of the books had to be replaced.
Again – you can do better!
Starting points
Use poems that the young people have read as a starting point to model a particular
style or pattern of writing which they can then have a go at.
Alternatively, often young people just need a starting point to get them going. Try things
like, ‘I remember’, ‘I love’, ‘I hate’, ‘I wish’. These kind of starting points can lend
themselves to list poems or young people can take them in their own direction. Again you
could make a group list poem of all the things that the young people love or hate.
Poetry events
If you’re not confident in working with poetry yourself (or if you want to bring an
additional excitement to your work) it’s worth considering a special poetry event for
which you might want to hire a professional poet. Poetry slams, performances and
workshops can all be popular with young people.
1. Running a poetry slam
Poetry Slam
A slam is the competitive art of performance poetry. Participants (single performers or groups)
perform their original work and are judged by members of the audience. Typically, the host
selects the judges, who are instructed to give numerical scores (between 0 and 10) based on the
poet's content and performance. The audience’s job is to keep the mood supportive, energetic
and encouraging to all participants.

Rules – performers/poets
• Each poem must be an original piece performed by the participant/group
• Poems can be on any subject and in any style
• No props, no costumes, no musical instruments, no pre-recorded music

5
 • Performances are timed and should not exceed 3 minutes – timing starts when the
performance or sound beings
• Heckling or disrupting of another performer’s performance results in disqualification

Rules – judges
• Five judges are selected at random from the audience (no experience needed). Pulling
names out of a hat is a good way to pick
• The judges must be fair and not mark their mates higher!
• Judges are asked to award equal marks for both poem and performance
• Each judge is given a set of score cards from 1 to 10

Preparation
• Book and contract a poet who has had experience of running slams and who will be the
host for the evening
• Book a suitable venue and a pa system
• The local media should be interested in this, let them know about it, get a photographer
and journalist to come along and join the fun, contact your local radio station to see if
they’ll have the winner/s performing their poem live in the studio – this could be part of
the prize for the winner
• You may want to give your slam a theme around which the poems are written – make
sure that potential participants know this
• Get your teenage reading groups/local secondary school/local youth club involved and
interested – sign up who will be taking part before the event
• You may want to run a ‘rap ‘n’ rhyme’ workshop prior to the slam to get those creative
juices flowing
• Prepare your score cards (1 – 10) you will need five sets of them
• Prepare certificates for everyone taking part – as everyone who enters the slam is a
winner – and decide on a prize for the winner/s
• Make a note of who has signed-up to take part
• Get in refreshment

Instructions:
Slams are usually organized over three rounds. A poet/group may enter the same piece in all
three rounds, but it’s usually better if they write and perform different pieces each time.

If you have a relatively small number of slam participants, you may need only one round to find
your winner.

Round one:
• Each participant/group performs for 3 minutes.
• After each performance the judges are asked to hold up their chosen scores so that the
audience can see them. The high and low scores are dropped, and the middle three are
added together, giving the poet a total score of between 3 –30. The top third
poets/groups go through to the next round

Round two:
• The process is repeated in Round two, with the top third going through the final round

6
Round three:
• Repeat the process again to find your winner.

At the end of the slam:

• Give the winner/s their prizes
• Post a video of the winning performance on groupthing.org
• Thank everyone for coming and for taking part
• Pay your poet and take them back to the train station

2. Booking a poet for a performance

You’re probably all experts at this but, just in case, here is a checklist of tips from people who’ve
done lots of working with poets. Hopefully in HeadSpace, your young people will be doing the
organising so you could use this checklist to help them to prepare for an event.

• Plan your event at least 6 weeks in advance if you’re marketing it to the public
• Think about the audience and purpose before booking a poet
• Think about timings – an hour will be long enough for a poetry reading and make sure it’s
at a time that young people will be able to get along
• Think about your budget – big name poets can be expensive. Most poets will charge
between £150-£300 for an event. You’ll also need to think about travel expenses,
refreshments and marketing
• If you need funding for your event, talk to your local arts council literature officer at least a
few months in advance
• You probably won’t want to charge for a young people’s event but think about ticketing
the event anyway so that you know how many people to expect
• If you want large numbers you’ll need to work with local schools or arts/ youth
organisations
• If you’re not sure which poet to book talk to colleagues in other authorities, your local arts
council literature officer, Apples and Snakes, Booktrust, National Association of Writers in
Education etc
• Make sure your poet has experience of working with young people – a big name is not
necessarily going to be better than someone local and less well-known
• Ask your poet for publicity material, check they’re CRB-checked, agree fees and contracts
in advance and check whether they need travel expenses and accommodation
• Make sure your poet has details of the venue, time and date etc at least a month in
advance and get in touch to confirm arrangements a week or so before the event
• Try to read some of the poet’s work before the event and encourage your young people to
do the same
• Agree to pick your poet up from a station if necessary
• Market your event via schools and colleges, youth centres, bookshops and through your
local arts council literature officer. Think about using social networking tools such as
Facebook, email, Twitter, groupthing

7
 • Send out a press release including quotes from the poet, a photo, details of the event and
complimentary tickets
• Think about your staffing/volunteer needs. Who is going to put out chairs, serve drinks,
welcome the poet etc
• Think about what you will do if no-one turns up (or the event is over-subscribed)
• Think about the role of MC – they need to welcome the audience, introduce the poet (with
details of his/her work, publications, awards etc), explain what’s going to happen, thank
everyone at the end and plug books and cds
• Think about how you are going to evaluate the event – perhaps you could record young
people’s comments with video or audio equipment at the end or have a graffiti board when
they can leave comments

3. Running poetry workshops

You’ll need: 1 poet, pens, pencils, paper, tables and chairs, flip charts etc, (and maybe:
microphone, cd player, internet access) refreshments and a space where the poet and
participants won’t be interrupted.

Somewhere between 6 and 16 young people.

Preparation:
• Think about the aims of the workshop. What does your group want to get out of it?
• Book and contract a poet who has experience of running workshops with your target
audience (remember to CRB check if they are going to be working with young people).
Ask what they will need for the workshop, and contract them to arrive at least 45
minutes before it’s due to start.
• Book the workshop space – again consider the needs of workshop participants
• Brief staff
• Start spreading the word. Contact creative reading and writing classes, your reading
groups; schools; local companies and so on, as appropriate
• Send out a press release: if you’re working with a local poet, or in a school/youth club
see if you can get a photographer from the local newspaper
• If you know in advance who will be coming, brief them about what to expect and if
possible give them a ‘taster’ of the poet’s work
• If you’re holding an ‘open’ workshop make tickets (even if you’re not charging) so that
you can monitor take-up and know when your workshop has reached capacity
• If you’re running a workshop for young people which involves using a mic you’ll need to
book a small pa system and hold the session where the noise won’t travel…
• Get together all the pens, pencils, paints, paper, flip charts etc that you will need on the
day
• Organise refreshments
• Think about what you want to do with the poems that are produced – will they go up on
a display, can you record them for groupthing?
• Collect together poetry titles/spoken word cds/creative writing manuals relevant to the
workshop and which could appeal to participants
• Prepare evaluation forms

8
Instructions:
• Meet and greet your poet at the train station
• Prepare the room so that it is ready at least 30 minutes before you expect your
participants
• If the workshop is with young people, a member of staff should stay with the group
• Start on time and introduce your poet, make reference to the books that can be issued
• Take photos
• Remember to collect any work that is produced if it is going to be put up on display – let
people know when they can come and see it
• Get participants to fill out your evaluation forms
• Thank everyone for coming and tell them when the next one is!
• Thank your poet, pay them and take them back to the train station

Afterwards:
• Make sure the display goes up asap
• Do a brief report making note of the pluses and minuses
• Feed back to staff
• Put poems and photos on your website
• If local media taken photos, phone them up to see when they will appear, see if you can get some
of the poems included as well

Faber poetry competition

This month we’ve teamed up with Faber to run a young people’s poetry competition. The theme
of the competition is ‘Cool’ and winning entrants can receive free books and other poetry prizes
as well as being published on groupthing.

Competitions can be great way to motivate young people to try something new so why not have
a session focusing on the competition and see how many entries you can get from your
HeadSpace.

Ideas for discussion and group work:

• Have a HeadSpace discussion about what cool is. Is it a thing you’re born with or something
you can learn to be? Are there rules and who makes them? Is it something in your
personality, something advertisers try to sell to you, something you can buy or wear?
• Have a look online and in dictionaries to see if you can find a definition of cool
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_%28aesthetic%29
• Can your group make up their own definition of cool? Can they agree on which things or
people are cool and which things aren’t?
• Talk about how what’s cool has changed over time. Are things that were cool in the
seventies, eighties and nineties still cool today?
• What kind of things do you imagine will be cool in the future: next year, in ten years, in a
hundred years time?

9
 • What is cool? Are there rules? Is it a thing you are, a thing you can try to be? Is it "good" to
be cool?
• Try to think of different contexts in which the word ‘cool’ is used. You can ‘keep your cool’
or ‘lose your cool’, reassure someone of your friendship with the words, ‘we’re cool’ or
show agreement or excitement with the word.
• What does cool have to do with temperature? If cool is good then is it bad to be warm and
caring?
• Ask people to bring in images of people or things that they think are cool or search for
them online. Make a display in your HeadSpace and invite people to comment.
• Play a word association game starting with the word ‘cool’. Going round in a circle each
person adds a word to the chain. Keep a list of the words and perhaps some of them could
form the inspiration for a poem.
• Make a HeadSpace list of things which are ‘going up’ and ‘going down’ as they do in The
Guardian and other fashion magazines etc
• Have a look at other poems about the nature of cool. Is Rudyard Kipling’s if really about
being a man or is it about being cool? http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_if.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCNIBV87wV4&feature=player_embedded Look at this
poem. Is it cool to have an opinion these days, or not?

Getting started with your writing. Try this;

• Make a mind map with the word ‘cool’ at the centre. Think of all the different associations
with the word cool and write them in surrounding bubbles or branches. Keep going until
you’ve exhausted all the possible meanings and associations with the word. Some of these
ideas could form the basis of your poem.
• Try some free writing. This is when you write non-stop for 5 minutes without thinking too
much. Start with the words ‘cool is……’. Don’t stop to read what you’ve written and try not
to take your pen off the paper. When you’ve finished, go back and read what you’ve
written underlining any words or phrases that you particularly like. You could use these
words as part of your poem or make them a new starting point and begin the exercise
again.
• Think about the 5 senses and see if you can use them to write about cool. What does cool
look like, smell like, taste like, feel like, sound like?
• Imagery (similes and metaphors) is important in poetry. Use ideas such as the ones in
theYou are exercise above to think about cool. If cool was an animal what would it be?
What colour? What holiday destination?

Writing a poem:
Poems can come in different forms. Some of them rhyme and some of them don’t.

Rhyme
If you want to rhyme your poem, think carefully about the rhythm; like songs, poems usually
have a regular beat. If you enjoy rhyming you could try writing in a particular form such as a
sonnet, villainelle or pantoum. Look on the web or in poetry books for examples and see if you
can write something in the same pattern.

10
Free verse
Remember that poems don’t have to rhyme and many of the best modern poems don’t. Free
verse allows you to really say what you want to say without the restrictions of rhyme. The
sounds of words are still important though and, in a poem, every word needs to count. Make
sure you’ve used the best words and images you can come up with and think about using
techniques like alliteration to make your poem more powerful.

Competition guidelines:
• The competition is open to young people aged 11-19
• Entries must be the original work of young people
• All poems must be on the theme of ‘cool’
• Poems must not exceed the 250 word limit
• Entries can be submitted as written work or video/audio and should be uploaded onto
groupthing http://groupthing.org/groups/cool-competition
• The entries will be judged by a professional poet and prizes will be accorded in two
categories: ages 11-14, 15-19.
• Prizes will include poetry books and other poetry prizes. The winning poems will be
published on groupthing.
• All entries must be received by midnight on December 1st 2009

Other opportunities for young poets

If your young people have got the poetry bug, keep your eye out for other opportunities for
them to get involved in. Here are just a few things they might be interested in:

• Foyle young poets competition for poets aged 11-17. The most prestigious award for
young poets usually closes in July. Young people can win places on Arvon residentials as
well as books, subscriptions to magazines and a place at the award ceremony
• Young Writer magazine features writing exercises, competitions and author tips
• Arvon foundation can provide week-long residentials for young people as part of its
educational programme

Useful websites
If you want to work with poetry the internet is your friend. There are masses of poetry
websites. Just Google ‘poetry’ and you’ll be inundated with them. There are also lots of
poetry exercises and lesson plans that you could download to use with your group. If
you’re looking for a particular poem, you can usually Google that too. Some useful sites
are:

• www.poetrybooks.org.uk

• www.poetryarchive.org

• www.poetrysociety.org.uk

11
This month we’re all reading……

The Medusa Project: The Set- Up by Sophie McKenzie

The Medusa Project: The Set-Up is the first in a new series of titles by award-winning
author, Sophie Mckenzie (Girl, Missing, Blood Ties). Dealing with contemporary issues such
as embryo research, the first book is an action-packed thriller about four young people
who have supernatural abilities. Think Heroes for teens.
If your group would like to read the book, Simon and Schuster will give a set
of free copies for the first reading group to get in touch. Two young people
who submit reviews to groupthing can also win signed copies of the book.
Before reading the book:
• Have a look at the microsite www.themedusaproject.co.uk to find out more about
the world that the book is set in and the main characters.

• Look online for other resources relating to the books. On You Tube you can find an
interview with Sophie McKenzie and the publisher’s trailer.

• Discuss psychic and supernatural abilities. The characters in the books have abilities
that reflect their natural characteristics e.g. Nico (the active one) has the power of
telekenesis (moving things with his mind), while Ed (the studious one) can read minds.
Ketty can predict the future and Dylan can protect herself from physical harm. What
characteristics do your young people think The Medusa gene would amplify in them?
What powers would they like to have and what would they use them for? You could
write about this or video it, draw pictures, animate it or simply have a discussion.

• Read the opening to the book. Does it make you want to read on? Why/why not?
What do you know about Nico from this chapter? What about his relationship with
his stepfather? What do you think will happen next? How can he win Ketty’s love and
do you think she’ll go out with him? What about Fergus – is he going to turn out to be
a goodie or a baddie?
Whilst reading the book:
• Ask young people to commit to reading a section of the book between meetings and
discuss the section that’s been read or read the whole book between meetings.

• Take a good section of the book and turn it into a playscript that can be acted out
and videod for groupthing.

• Turn a reading group discussion into a podcast and post it on groupthing.

• Join in discussions with young people from other HeadSpaces on groupthing. Go to

www.groupthing.org and click on ‘chat’.

• Discuss some of the moral issues in the book. Is it okay for scientists to experiment
on foetuses or on pregnant women? Is it okay for scientists to experiment on children
or animals?

12
 • Was Nico right to use his powers to influence the results of a football match or to win
in a casino? Should powers only be used for good? Would everyone be susceptible to
the lure of power, money and fame?

• Nico claims that everything he does is for Ketty. Do you think this is true?

• What do you think of Dylan? Do you think she’s working with or against Nico?

• What about Fergus. Is he right to stop Nico knowing about his special abilities? What
motivates him?

• Have a look at character profiles on www.themedusaproject.co.uk and make up your

own characters with their own special abilities. Make a display on the library wall or
submit them to groupthing.
When you’ve finished the book:
• What do you think of the ending? Does it satisfy? Does it leave you wanting to read
the next book in the series?

• Do you like books that leave cliffhangers to make you read the next book in the
series?

• Read the first chapter of the next book (included at the back of the novel). Do you
think the next book will be good? Do you like the fact that the narrator has changed
from Nico to Ketty?

• Write reviews and submit them to groupthing. The best reviews (as in well-written,
not necessarily full of praise!) can win signed copies of the book.

• Podcast young people giving their opinions of the book and post them on
groupthing.

• Make your own group’s video trailer for the book which can posted on groupthing or
run on your plasma screen.

• Make a video about the book and post it on groupthing or run it on your plasma
screen

• Consider how the book’s themes could be used to inspire a design for Simon and
Schuster’s book bag competition (details below).

Next month we’ll be looking at The Death Collector by Justin Richards.

It’s a spooky tale set in a Victorian world of grave-robbing, assassins and zombies. If your
reading group would like to read the book, Faber is offering free copies for up to 10
HeadSpaces in return for reviews. The books are available now and reviews need to be in
to Faber by the end of January so there is a small amount of time to plan your reading. As
usual, I’ll be adding some reading group notes in the November bulletin to help you.

And finally……

13
Simon and Schuster Book Bag Competition
It’s not too late for your young people to get involved in designing a book bag for Simon
and Schuster to use. The design should have a theme of urban fantasy and should be
inspired by one of their books such as The Medusa Project – featured above.
The deadline for the competition is 31.01.10 and more information can be found on
groupthing.

14