August Poetry: Future Poets

Dunedin Poet Sue Wootton is passionate about nurturing creative poetry in children.

A recent poetry workshop at Karitane School produced some quite outstanding gems, which add to our rich bounty of poems for this issue in celebration of National Poetry Day.  

The poem Dawnlight, by Pheobe Holtis almost a prayer, or a gift - to those who have left as well as to those of us left behind... How wise kids are, huh?

Dawnlight
We will travel beyond the lands
in our hot air balloon, in the dawnlight,
the morning glory, like magic.
We will travel far away, over the sea!
But first we must untie the rope
that keeps us from the sky.

by Phoebe Holt, aged 8, Karitane School


This one is inspired by Margaret Mahy's poem Cat in the Dark.

Out in the moony dark
In the moony dark, creeping about ...
The cat is out.
The bats are out,
The owls are awake.
Everything is still.

Then the possums start to laugh - k-k-k-k-k!
The owls hoot.
The bats squeak.
The cat hisses.
The moon shines brightly on the shaking tree.

by the junior class, ages 5 and 6, Karitane School

While this is inspired by Theodore Roethke's Child on a Glasshouse Roof

Walking on Huriawa Peninsula
The wind tickling and pushing my hair,
my feet rushing. My feet braking me to a stop.
The whale's tail flying out of the silver sea,
up and up, spraying drops like diamond fireworks.
A few gulls dodging and squawking,
a line of orcas weaving the water,
and everyone, everyone pointing and smiling!

(a collaborative poem by James Marshall, Ella Farrant and Eliza Hennephof, aged 10, Karitane School) 

And another collaborative piece by the junior classes.

Driftwood
A tree in the mountain fell in the lake,
The lake took the tree to the river.
The river went WHOOSH
and the tree drifted free
all the way out to the wide blue sea.
The waves in the sea brought the tree to me.
By the junior class, ages 5 and 6, Karitane School.