SOUVENIR POEMS
National Poetry Day 2014
Theme: Remember
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Foreword
Celebrating National Poetry Day with memorable words
The writer WH Auden once declared “poetry is memorable speech”. Poetry’s
box of tricks – rhythm, sound patterns, repetitions, striking images, internal and
external rhymes – make language sticky. Think of the nursery rhymes and songs
and jingles you can’t dislodge from your mind. Maybe if the hard-to-learn bits of
maths and history and science were taught only via a series of rhymes they’d
lodge more firmly in our heads…
Here, the wonderful poet Cheryl Moskowitz has provided suggestions for great
activities and lessons around the National Poetry Day 2014 theme of Remember.
I love them all – especially the ones involving special souvenirs - and look
forward to seeing how she has inspired you to create memorable poems in the
classroom.
Please share your activities and achievements by taking pictures and posting
them on Twitter and Instagram #nationalpoetryday. For news about other
poetry resources - for use all year round as well as on October 2 - sign up at
www.forwardartsfoundation.org/contact-us/
Susannah Herbert
Director - National Poetry Day
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Why Poetry?
This Year’s National Poetry Day theme is ‘Remember’.
Poetry engages all our senses and makes us feel as well as think. Because the
shape of a poem - the way it looks and sounds - is as important as what it
means, we can usually remember a poem better than we can other kinds of
writing. Reciting a poem from memory, especially a poem we have written
ourselves, is a very satisfying thing to do. www.poetrybyheart.org.uk
The making and sharing of poems is an ideal way to support the teaching of
reading and creative writing. It encourages vocabulary development, engages
pupils in listening and speaking activities and the exploration of concepts like
rhyme and rhythm, the formation of lines and the counting of syllables ties in well
with other aspects of the curriculum such as mathematics, PSHE and music.
Poetry can be a useful way of making sure we do not forget about important
events from history. The rhyme about Guy Fawkes Day tells us: ‘Remember,
remember! The fifth of November…’
(Full poem here: www.potw.org/archive/potw405.html)
For older children, Siegfried Sassoon’s WWI poem Aftermath which begins ‘Have
you forgotten yet?...’ is a powerful reminder never to forget the horrors of war.
(Full poem here: www.potw.org/archive/potw160.html)
Poetry is also the perfect way to explore more personal concerns and hold on to
what we don’t want to forget about our own lives.
Here is a poem I have written which tries to imagine what kind of things a child
might hope to remember when they are grown up:
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Some Things I Will Remember
There are things I will remember
when I’m older
that I can’t remember now
the feel of my mother’s hand
on my back when I can’t sleep
the smell of the Junior hall
on Thursdays when they have
chips and spaghetti rings
for school dinners
the smell of my lunch box
when Dad’s made me tuna fish
sandwiches
the way grown-up’s eyes puff up
the same whether they’ve been
asleep or crying
the butterflies I get when someone
says something funny
and only a few people understand
and I’m one of them.
The faces of everyone I love.
(from CAN IT BE ABOUT ME by Cheryl Moskowitz, Frances Lincoln Books 2012)
Sometimes we have memories already stored in our heads that we can write
about but often it helps to draw ideas from the things that are around us.
All poets will tell you that before the writing of a poem must come the inspiration
for writing it. Inspiration for the theme of Remember is never far from home.
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Setting Up
Thinking about objects as memory holders
Discuss the significance of keepsakes, family heirlooms, gifts you might have
been given as a baby and intend to keep for always.
Talk about different ways we hold on to and share memories through
photographs, diaries, letter writing, school websites and blogs, etc.
Discuss and define the idea of souvenir (from the French for ‘a remembrance’ or
‘memory’).
A souvenir is a thing that is kept as a reminder of a person,
place, or event.
A souvenir might be something you have specially chosen for yourself to
remember a trip you have taken - bought, say, from a museum shop or on
holiday, or found, like a seashell on a beach or a pinecone in a forest.
Someone who has been away for a while might bring a souvenir back for
you as a gift.
If a friend or a relative is going away, they might give you a souvenir to
remember them by, like a friendship bracelet or a lucky charm.
Even a scrap of cloth or a broken piece from an old toy can be considered a
souvenir - the torn off ear of a teddy bear, the broken arm of a doll, a piece of
material saved from your old pyjamas, blanket, or bedcover, a scrap of fabric
from the curtains in your grandmother’s house.
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Get Started
Finding and gathering inspiration
Ask the children to look around at home and see if they can find any souvenirs
of their own - something they might be allowed to bring in, talk about and show
to the class.
You could also suggest that they talk to their parents or grandparents about
what souvenirs they might have from their own childhood and where they came
from, and whether it might be possible to bring those objects in to share with the
class.
Perhaps there are some classroom souvenirs that can be found and talked
about also - a memento from a school trip or something left behind by a visiting
guest?
Souvenir trinkets can also often be found in junk shops or charity shops. You may
want to build up a collection and bring it into the classroom so that everyone
can try to imagine the sort of place each object comes from, why it was bought
and the memories it might hold.
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Make a Display – Museum of Memories
Designate an area of the classroom for keeping and displaying the souvenirs the
children have brought in. Create a museum. You might want to order or group
the objects into different categories, for example:
Shelf 1 – Souvenirs from holidays
Shelf 2 – Souvenirs parents/grandparents gave me
Shelf 3 – Souvenirs from school trips or outings
Shelf 4 – Souvenirs to remember special people
Shelf 5 – Souvenirs to remember a favourite toy/clothing
and so on….
Encourage the children to ‘tour’ the museum and examine everyone else’s
souvenir objects as well as their own.
Encourage speaking and listening - allowing time for each child to share
information about the object they have brought in and what memories it might
hold for them.
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Activity 1
Ways in to writing your poem - Make a Word
Bank, writing an acrostic poem KS1
This can be done as an individual task or a group exercise.
Sit the children in small groups at separate tables with their souvenirs. Divide
them according to the category of their souvenir so, for example, all the
children with holiday souvenirs could sit at one table. If the groups are too large
think of subdivisions, geographical perhaps - souvenirs from the UK or other parts
of Europe, souvenirs from Asia, Africa or the Americas. Alternatively organise
them by types of places - souvenirs from the seaside, souvenirs from cold places,
souvenirs from hot places ….
Provide each table with a large piece of paper and if possible ask a teacher,
TA, parent volunteer, or child who is proficient in writing to take the notes for
each table.
Ask the children to look at their object, hold it in their hands, feel it, smell it, think
about it and come up with as many words as they can that describe what the
object is like, where it might be from and what kind of memories it holds for
them. When the paper is full with words stick it up somewhere so all the children
at the table can see.
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Ask them to select words from the bank to help them write an acrostic poem
about their souvenir – they can either start with the name of the object:
T
E
D
D
Y
or everyone could use the word REMEMBER or SOUVENIR as a starting point for
their acrostic instead.
The acrostic poem should relate to their souvenir and contain as much
information as possible about the origin of the souvenir and the memories it
holds.
Encourage the choosing of words that sound nice with one another but also
make sense. They might want to focus on finding rhyming words, or those with
alliterative or ‘assonant’ sounds (the use of the same vowel sound with different
consonants).
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Activity 2
‘I can remember’ - a patchwork of haikus KS1-2
A haiku is a short form of Japanese poetry totalling 17 syllables, usually in three
lines of 5,7,5.
Again, using the word bank encourage the children to find a way to say
something about their souvenir, or the memory that it holds, in haiku form.
If everyone starts with the same five syllable line, I can remember, and goes on
to compose a 7 syllable line and another 5 syllable line to complete the haiku,
there will be a certain uniformity to the results.
I can remember
this doll I used to play with
was my favourite
It might be pleasing to think about having each child write their finished haiku
on a piece of coloured card that has been cut into a square, diamond or
rectangular patchwork shape. If the souvenir the child is writing about also
happens to be a piece of material perhaps the haiku about that souvenir can
be written directly, with fabric pen, onto the material, cut into the same
patchwork size shape and then all the poems can be assembled, stitched or
glued, into a kind of memory quilt.
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Activity 3
‘I remember’, a list poem KS1-2
This should be done as an individual exercise.
Get the children to sit with their souvenir and write down, in list form, all the
things they remember about first getting their souvenir.
When they have written all the ‘I remembers’ that they can about their object
then they should choose which ones they like best and order them into a list
poem with each line beginning ‘I remember’.
My Souvenir
I remember Grandma opening her suitcase and giving the doll to me
I remember it smelled of spice and chocolate
I remember thinking it looks funny
I remember saying Thank you Grandma
I remember wondering what it must be like to go on an airplane
I remember putting the doll on my shelf and looking at it before I went to sleep
I remember dreaming about where it might have come from
I remember going places in my dreams
I remember thinking one day I’ll be a grandma too
I remember saying I’m going to keep this forever.
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Activity 4
‘We remember’ - a poem of shared memories KS1-2
This exercise involves working in pairs and as a whole group. If possible chairs
and tables should be pushed back so that you can work on the floor.
Have the children work in pairs with a felt pen each and a large piece of sugar
paper between them.
Ask each child to spend a few minutes individually thinking about their object
with their eyes closed.
Tell them to imagine
they have returned to the place where they bought/found the souvenir
are with the person who gave it to them
are playing with the toy or wearing the clothes from which their souvenir
came.
Ask them to bring the experience to mind with all their senses.
What is happening around them?
What do they see/hear/smell/taste and feel (both in the physical and
emotional sense)?
After a minute or so they should open their eyes and one child should act as
scribe for the other, writing the words and images from their partner’s head. Ask
them to keep their writing to one half of the paper. Then, without turning the
paper over, they swap over so that the writing child gets the chance to share
their words and images and their partner records these on the remaining blank
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half of the paper. You could ask an adult helper to scribe for both children if
that works best.
Give each pair some scissors and ask them to cut up all the writing so they are
left with a pile of strips with the individual words or phrases on them. Perhaps
something like:
a clear blue sea
the smell of hot dogs
a very tall shopkeeper with a long nose
my mother and sister eating ice-cream
hot, hot sun
my grandad riding a donkey
my aunty looking after me
cuddling my blue teddy
the sound of cowbells
music playing
rain falling on the rooftops
Next comes the choosing and editing. Tell each pair they should look together
at all the words and phrases they have written down and between them they
should choose three (not three each, but three between them!) Collect the
choices from all of the pairs.
Once each pair has given you their three chosen words or phrases (if you have
30 children in your class you will end up with approximately 45 bits of paper)
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read everything out to the class in no particular order - these are the words you
will use to build your class poem.
Now it is time to put these ‘best words’ in the ‘best order’ (like Samuel Taylor
Coleridge did). Bring the whole group together and sit in a circle leaving space
for arranging the final poem in the centre.
You could decide together which word or phrase makes a good starting point
and then take turns deciding which word or phrase should come next or, if you
have a class that is good at collaborative working, you could try making those
decisions together.
If necessary you can always add in linking words like ‘and’ or ‘in’ to give the
poem more elegance and shape.
Encourage the children to use their ‘poet ears’ and you will be surprised how
attuned they can be to what feels right and sounds right. Just about any order
will make an interesting poem. What you end up with is a narrative collage of
memories stimulated by thinking about the various souvenirs and where they
came from.
This exercise is excellent for class bonding and for modelling the difficult process
of editing and choosing that a writer must go through.
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Final Sharing
Display the quilt and the other finished poems alongside the souvenir
objects in the Memory Museum.
Write the poems as labels to attach to the individual objects.
Perform the poems on National Poetry Day in assembly.
See if the class can memorise the class poem ‘We Remember’ and
maybe one other, either one they wrote themselves or one of another
poet’s that they like.
Take photographs of the souvenirs before they get taken home again
and make an album with all the poems next to the souvenir which
provided the inspiration.
Make poem cards or poem pictures as gifts for family or friends who might
have been associated with that particular souvenir.
Tweet your shorter poems using the hashtag #nationalpoetryday or post a
link to your school website for a larger selection.
Tweet photographs of your haiku memory quilts, using the hashtag
#nationalpoetryday
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Follow Up
Why stop here? Poetry is not just good for writing about memory but can also be
a good memory aid. Why not incorporate the writing of a remembering poem
into your class day? In the last five minutes before home time you could work
together with your class to compose a short poem, a haiku perhaps or a
rhyming couplet, summarising what happened during the day or what’s in store
for the next.
Today we learned our long division
Tomorrow we do our spelling revision
Suggested Reading
Below are suggestions and links to some poems which may be inspiring for you
to read with your class alongside these writing activities.
Janet S Wong ‘A Suitcase of Seaweed’ and ‘Quilt’ in A Suitcase of Seaweed and other Poems
Simon & Schuster 1996
Eleanor Farjeon ‘It Was Long Ago’ - http://allpoetry.com/It-Was-Long-Ago
David Harris ‘Among Our Souvenirs’ - www.poemhunter.com/poem/among-our-souvenirs
Thomas Hood ‘I Remember, I Remember’ http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173652
James Berry ‘Childhood Tracks’ - http://childrenspoetryarchive.org/poem/childhood-tracks
James Berry ‘Seashell’ - http://childrenspoetryarchive.org/poem/seashell
Valerie Bloom ‘Granny Is’ - http://childrenspoetryarchive.org/poem/granny
Joan Poulson ‘Pictures in my Mind’ - http://childrenspoetryarchive.org/poem/pictures-my-mind
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Footnotes
WordSpace
WordSpace is a range of creative writing resources for primary schools. Our
products are designed to inspire children to write by making writing relevant,
interesting and fun. Read more: www.bookspaceforschools.co.uk/wordspace
National Poetry Day
www.forwardartsfoundation.org/national-poetry-day/what-is-national-poetry-day
National Poetry Day is a nationwide celebration of poetry held on the first
Thursday of October. Since 1994, it has shaken poetry from its dust-jacket and
into the nation’s schools, playgrounds, streets, airwaves, train stations and shops,
though live events, happenings, classroom activities, broadcasts, tweets and
spontaneous uncontrollable outbursts of poetry.
This year National Poetry Day is Thursday 2nd October 2014. Every year we
suggest a theme to inspire events and contributions, and this year’s is
Remember. Visit our website www.nationalpoetryday.co.uk for ideas, resources
and memorable poems about remembering.
Forward Arts Foundation, a charity committed to widening poetry’s audience,
runs National Poetry Day and the Forward Prizes for Poetry. It publishes the
Forward Book of Poetry, an indispensable anthology of the year’s best poems.
Cheryl Moskowitz
Cheryl Moskowitz is an award winning poet, playwright and novelist. She writes
for adults as well as children and has worked extensively in schools with all ages
and abilities. Her poetry collection CAN IT BE ABOUT ME? (Frances Lincoln 2012)
was a Poetry Book Society Choice, commended by Julia Eccleshare as “a
delightfully varied collection of poems… in tune with what goes on inside and
outside the classroom”, and widely praised by school librarians, primary school
children, parents and teachers. Website: www.cherylmoskowitz.com
© Cheryl Moskowitz 2014
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