Poetry Bubbles

September 10, 2020

Susannah Herbert is the Executive Director of Forward Arts Foundation, the charity that promotes knowledge and enjoyment of poetry through National Poetry Day and the Forward Prizes for Poetry. She stepped into the Children’s Poetry Summit blog recently to offer helpful tips on how to overcome that initial fear of what to do for National Poetry Day, just in time for the big day.

 

Poetry bubbles – or how to throw a National Poetry Day party anywhere

A confession. I’ve been involved with National Poetry Day for eight years, but I am still – a little bit – scared of poetry. My favourite Burns Night guests can recite William McGonagall with gusto, glorying in their rubbish Scots accents. Another leaves us spellbound by Christina Rossetti or reduced to gulping laughter by Michael Rosen. I envy them: they enjoy themselves, break the rules. Their relish in the tumbling rhythm re-charges us all.

And that’s the funny thing: once someone has set the poetry ball rolling in a small gathering, self-consciousness dissolves and the rest clamour for their turns. My husband has an incomprehensible weakness for Edwin Morgan’s The Loch Ness Monster’s Songwhich starts

Sssnnnwhuffffll?
Hnwhuffl hhnnwfl hnfl hfl?

And he is not alone.

One holiday evening this summer, round a fire, a retired engineer drew my teenage daughters’ attention away from TikTok with a mesmerising Jabberwocky. In German. (Their faces brightened with each stanza as the universal language of nonsense kicked in.)

Eins, Zwei! Eins, Zwei! Und durch und durch
Sein vorpals Schwert zerschnifer-schnück

I suddenly realised I too had something to say that’s out of the ordinary, and permission to say it. I could be someone else, no longer the all-purpose cook-and-bottle-washer but one of Shakespeare’s crazed royals – Leontes, Lear, Richard II – or, better still, the narrator of Tara Bergin’s At the Garage, which begins with an innocent challenge:

Ask me:

Have I fallen in love with the mechanic?

(And just gets, well, dirtier and dirtier):

Perhaps – perhaps, for a moment.
He doesn’t know what it is.
It’s his hands –
so thickly black with engine oil,
so hard-working, and in such high demand.

National Poetry Day has always been about sharing poetry, but 2020, the year of  bubbles and shields, presents a new thrill: sharing poems with neighbours, colleagues, friends and family, rather than with strangers in public places.

Here are some tips, gleaned from experience – and from The Reader Organisation’s Pass on a Poem whose poetry get-togethers throughout the UK are perfect models of community delight.

1) Feature food and drink prominently in your National Poetry Day celebrations on Thursday October 1st. Chocolate biscuits work well: toffees guarantee sound effects. Cake is superb at elevenses, tea-time or moments in-between.

2) Invite people who can’t physically be there, because they’re shielding or just too far away. This is what Zoom is for.

3) A mix of generations means a bigger range. Lots of children have a second language, invite them to share a poem in it and give a translation, as approximate as they please. Grown ups can also do this, if their poem is short.

4) CRUCIAL: Invite people to share a poem that’s not written by themselves. This means that all – poets and poetry-lovers – are equal, and egos are under control.

5) Ask guests to send in their poems in advance so you can print them – or at least the titles – out. I am a sucker for recommendations: National Poetry Day recommended anthology reads include Nikita Gill’s SLAM: You’re Gonna Want to Hear this, Gyles Brandreth’s By the Light of the Moon, Chris Riddell’s Poems to Save the World With, Ana Sampson’s She Will Soar and Cerys Matthews’ Tell Me the Truth About Life.

6) Nominate an EmCee to introduce each reader and call time when you need to eat, or empty the house.

7) Give your National Poetry Day gathering a name and postcode – the Ultimate National Poetry Day Knees-Up, Oct 1, John O Groats KW1 4YT, or The Slap Up Poetry Elevenses, Oct 1, Land’s End TR19 7AA – and log it on the National Poetry Day map. Post pictures and playlists using hashtag #NationalPoetryDay and #ShareAPoem.