Poems & books & things
National Poetry Day is on 1st October 2020 and this year's theme is 'See It Like A Poet'. So I had a go at making a short animated film of one of my poems, 'When I was Cross-Eyed'. The poem's from my book Saturdays at the Imaginarium, and it's inspired by the idea that “We …
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There's a poem in Saturdays at the Imaginarium called 'M-M-Murray’s M-M-Mountains'. It's about someone called Murray (which you probably guessed) who's afraid of heights. The trouble is, Murray's a mountain climber. So he spends quite a lot of time feeling anxious. Worrying. Fretting. Stressing out. Poor Murray. I'll read you the poem in a short …
Have you ever wondered what goes into making a book? Snap - I wondered too. Then along came my first book, Saturdays at the Imaginarium - and I found out! Boy, was there a whole heap of stuff to learn. Plenty of hard work was involved over quite a long period of time, and also plenty of …
Continue reading "Behind the scenes: a quick peek into the making of the Imaginarium"
Have you ever heard it said that we're all made of stars? There's a theory in science that says that everyone and everything on Earth contains tiny star particles: that all the atoms and elements in our bodies and our world were originally created in stars that existed more than 4 billion years ago. Far out, …
Have you ever heard the expression, It's raining cats and dogs? Do you remember the movie, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs? One day, both of those things got me thinking, and then that thinking led to writing a poem. The poem is called 'And Now for the Weather in Wonderland' and you can find it in …
There's a poem in the Imaginarium called 'The Poetry Guerrilla'. You can listen to me reading it here: You can also read the poem on the National Poetry Day website at nationalpoetryday.co.uk/poem/the-poetry-guerrilla At this point it's important not to confuse a poetry guerrilla with a poetry gorilla. So what exactly are we talking about here? Guerrilla poetry …
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There’s a poem in Saturdays at the Imaginarium called ‘The Nameless’ where I write about things with no name. Here it is. A few things to ponder How can we write or speak about things if they have no name? Is it possible? Have you ever seen or felt something that you couldn’t quite find the …
Continue reading "Naming the nameless & making up new words"
The first poem in my book Saturdays at the Imaginarium is called 'Open Wide'. The poem's about eating and the title was inspired by what parents often say to babies and young children when they're feeding them. But 'Open Wide' is also an invitation to open our eyes and our minds to different ways of …
Continue reading "Open wide: seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary"
There's a poem in the Imaginarium called 'Little Brown Cup'. Here it is. When I was little, I thought that absolutely everything in the world was alive in some way and had feelings. Seriously, everything – every kind of creature, all of my toys, the books in the library, my chair, the trees and fields outside, …
Continue reading "What if everything is alive (even teacups)? A poem and two ‘thought experiments’"
Allow me to introduce you to Nina and Sebastian Rocha, my niece and nephew. Sadly we don't get to see nearly enough of each other because I live in England and they live in Brisbane, Australia. Anyway, when they saw that I had a new book out, they decided to interview me. Here's what they …
Shauna Darling Robertson 