Poems for World Day - by Adrian Mitchell
Twenty-One Secrets of Poetry
(Every art and craft and sport and skill has its Secrets. Here are some of the Secrets I’ve learned which may help you write your own poems)
One
Use your feet
To find the beat
Two
If the old word won’t do
Make up a new
Three
Don’t write about Autumn
‘Cos that’s the Season –
Write your poems
For a real reason
Four
Write to cool down
Write to get hot
Write about things
You like a lot
Five
Write for other people
Quite a few
Will sit down and write
A poem for you
Six
Like a poppy-field poppy
Be happy to copy
Seven
Good ideas often fly off, and so
Take that notebook with you wherever you go
(and three pens)
Eight
You can rhyme every time at the end of line
And that’s no crime if the word feels fine,
But on the other hand you can write a poem
Which doesn’t have any rhymes at all
Nine
What can you write about
It helps very much
If you choose something
You can see and touch
Ten
Maybe the search for food,
Maybe a quest for glory
But write a poem
Which tells a story
Eleven
Pile up your feelings
On a poetry plate –
Write about something
You really hate
Twelve
To make a poem
That lasts a minute
Daydream for hours
Before you begin it
Thirteen
Don’t just write
For the literate few
Write for babies
And animals too
Fourteen
When you read to a friend
Or recite to a crowd
Say your poem
Slow and loud
Fifteen
Poetry’s a lovely, dangerous game
But it’s very unlikely to bring you fame
So don’t try to live by your poetry
You’d earn more selling cat food on Mercury
Sixteen
Sad poems, funny poems –
Feel everything you’re writing.
Rough poems, gentle poems –
Make them all exciting
Seventeen
It’s pretty tiring
Just being you –
Write from other people’s
Points of view
Use lots of different voices and you may
End up with a poem
That becomes a play
Eighteen
All you can do with your life
Is live it
Poetry’s a gift –
So give it
Nineteen
If you want to learn
How to talk to grass
Or dance the giraffe
Or imitate glass
Invite a poet
Into your class
Twenty
Write a secret poem
That you never show
Learn it and burn it
So nobody will know
Twenty-one
These are Secrets.
None of them are Rules
Here’s another Secret:
There are no Rules in poetry
(Except the ones you make up for yourself Which you can break whenever you like.)
