A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

Brave Writer mom, Elizabeth, shared her son’s poem on an image of their teatime! The poem goes:

Brownies are great!

Guess how many I ate?

They taste like chocolate cake

that Mom freshly baked.

So good!

Hi Julie~

I wanted to share with you about a “golden” Poetry Tea Time we had recently. We’ve been including Poetry Tea in our school days off and on for the last couple of years.

A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I combined a business trip that he had out of state with some time away for our anniversary. Our boys stayed with friends for several days. Of course, the first days trying to get back into a routine can be bumpy. On this Tuesday morning, I was doing some “catch-up” reading that was kind of dragging on, and as I was about to pick up another book, our youngest son said, “Mom, let’s just do something fun.” Hmmm. I was torn between what “fun” might look like and what a lagging, boring day was looking like.

A couple of weeks earlier, after looking through the Poetry Tea Pinterest page for inspiration, I had checked a couple of books out from the library that looked “fun”. We had not yet gotten to them. A flash of inspiration grabbed me (and your voice reminded me that Inspiration is not a lengthy visitor). I went to the stack and pulled out the one that had sparkled a little more than the others to me. At first it was met with groans — not another book to read! But after some encouragement and an intro to the idea of the book, we snuggled in together and I began to read from “Mirror, Mirror” by Marilyn Singer. (I thought to myself that if they weren’t totally loving it after the first couple of poems, I would put it away and we’d take a break outside!)

They loved it. We read it from cover to cover.

When we finished the book, I suggested that we try to see if we could each write a poem in the same reverse style. The boys thought it would be way too hard. I suggested that we put a time limit on it and if it wasn’t “happening”, we’d call it done. So we found a quiet space and got to work for 20 minutes. (It actually took longer, but once they started and had some ideas rolling, they wanted more time to finish!!)

Below, I am including what they wrote, and in the spirit of learning together, also what I wrote: (The poems are untitled)

by Joshua age 14

The river flows on
All calm
And peaceful like.
The birds are chirping,
The sky is clear.
Not a single worry, though,
In the world.
My only soda!
I dropped it!
Now it’s gone,
My liquid friend
Forever
Floating down
The river (sigh).

(Now the same poem written from bottom to top.)

The river (sigh)
Floating down
Forever.
My liquid friend,
Now it’s gone.
I dropped it,
My only soda
In the world!
Not a single worry, though.
The sky is clear!
The birds are chirping!
And peaceful like,
All calm,
The river flows on.

by Samuel age 8

Good
goes WooHoo!
Bad goes Uh Oh

(And now in reverse)

Uh oh goes Bad
WooHoo goes
Good

by Mom

All golden,
leaves floated to the ground,
fluttering and swirling,
graceful like
a butterfly.

(And from the bottom to the top)

A butterfly,
graceful, like
fluttering and swirling
leaves, floated to the ground
all golden.

What fun!

So then, after the poetry, in celebration of their efforts, we did an impromptu Poetry Tea. I drove the 3 miles to the bakery in town and picked out our favorite treats while the boys set the table and made some hot chocolate. But what really made this tea time so “golden” was this: that night when their dad returned home, the first things they said to him were, “Hey Dad – you wanna see the cool poems we wrote today?”

Golden.

Blessings~
Tina

Visit our NEW Poetry Teatime website!

We picked up Halloween Stories and Poems edited by Caroline Feller Bauer. Put some instrumental Halloween music in the background to set the mood and just had a blast reading poems and stories while enjoying our treats. So much so I’m sure we will carry this theme throughout October.

Yvette

Visit our NEW Poetry Teatime website!

We are a REALLY busy family. I have 7 kids aged 2-11 and one of them is profoundly disabled requiring at least 8 hours a day hands on care. Since our high needs kiddo was born afternoon teas have been sporadic at best. A couple of months ago, I had a brainwave – let the kids host! My 5, 6, 7, 9 and 11 year olds take it in turns to host each week. Nash, Wordsworth, Shakespeare and Lear have returned like long lost friends and Custard The Dragon has taken his weekly place at our table again. Here is how we do things.

Step 1 – The child will let me know if they want a special theme and if the need anything specific for their afternoon tea on the Thursday before, straight after the last afternoon tea. Any special things they want will be written on the white board or the shopping list if needed or just talked about. Anna, my 6 year old, wanted a daffodil theme last week (it’s spring here in Australia) so was planning to pick daffodils and wanted me to find and print out “Daffodowndilly” by A A Milne as we don’t have a copy. Andrew, my 5 year old, wants a Monster Truck theme and assures me he needs nothing special unless I am willing to get him a real, actual monster truck (I’m not).

Step 2 – The morning of the afternoon tea the hosting child checks if they have everything and recruits any help needed. Anna asked her older sister (Erin, aged 11) to help her bake cupcakes. Andrew will probably ask his older brother to take him to the store across the road.

Step 3 – Any prep is started usually just before or after lunch. On Anna’s day lunch ran late and life happened so she opted to leave the ideas of baking for another day and pick daffodils before going to the store for chocolate biscuits (cookies for the Americans among us) and lemonade. Andrew will probably arrange his monster truck collection as a centerpiece then go across the road with his brother to get some biscuits and a special drink. Sometimes the older children make hot chocolate or cups of herbal tea, but this is the only time soft drink (pop) is allowed in the house so it’s quite a novelty.

Step 4 – At 3 0’clock the rest of us arrive at the table. Some of us may bring a special poem or book we wanted, others will just use the five volumes selected by the host and strewn on the table. After a short grace thanking God for beautiful things and beautiful words we will share our poems, laugh, clean up spills, have meaningful talks, indulge in a few limericks and playground chants and be done. At Anna’s afternoon tea “Daffodowndilly” by A. A. Milne featured alongside “Daffodils” by William Wordsworth and “Nothing Gold can Stay” by Robert Frost. But poems from Lear to Shakespeare to an irreverent collection of playground chants called “Unreal Banana Peel” all had their part. Andrew’s will likely have a few special Ogden Nash (Custard the Dragon is Andrew’s favourite) but everyone will have their piece.

Step 5 – Everyone puts their plates and cups in the dishwasher, the books go back to the poetry shelf or perhaps snuck outside to be perused in the hammock.

Poetry has always been a love of mine but bigger than this we are taking the time to add something special to our week. My kids love hosting. It makes them feel important and special. It fosters independence, planning and organizational skills and boosts their self esteem. There’s something about this that is even bigger than any educational outcome for us though. When my daughter with special needs was a tiny, fragile baby in NICU I could not even dress her, the only thing I could do to mark her as mine was place tiny bows in her hair. During that time I realized something very important. Bows matter. The doctors and nurses could keep her alive, but only I could put bows in her hair and love like a mother. The day to day survival stuff is big, but chocolate biscuits with poetry, daffodils and laughter – that’s more important than most people will ever realize. We love having this particular special “bow” taking pride of place in our week once again. We love having a time scheduled to laugh, love and share our hearts together.

Jessica

Visit our NEW Poetry Teatime website!