In my book Saturdays at the Imaginarium there’s a poem called ‘The Poetry Guerrilla’ featuring a mysterious character who sneaks poems into strange locations for people to find – inside a boiled egg, etched onto an aspirin, etc. You can read - and also hear me reading - the poem at nationalpoetryday.co.uk/poem/the-poetry-guerrilla I was really …
Click on the image to download a free resource for teaching and creative play, using poems from my book, Saturdays at the Imaginarium. The resource was created with teachers, librarians and parents in mind to use with children at around key stage 2. It includes ideas for reading, performing, reflecting, discussing, writing, drawing and more! …
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 …
Continue reading "Are you a poetry guerrilla? Let’s talk tactics!"
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 …
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Shauna Darling Robertson 