We are reading and writing poetry this term and the students have produced some lovely ones.
I want to share with you on such activity last week in which we read the following poem.
Names
‘I am Mark-want-to-be-a-warrior, son of
Dad-know-it-all.’
I bend to greet him. He is eight years old.
We are naming ourselves, in a poetry
workshop, in Maydena.
‘Whistling Tree Tops,’ I say, ‘daughter of
Joan-anxious-face.
So very pleased to meet you.’
‘My dad drives a Pearce-Louis log truck,’
Want-to-be boasts,
‘the biggest! And so will I when I grow up, and then
everybody'd better keep out of my way!’
‘Jenny-travel-a-lot,’ a small neat,
dark-eyed girl informs me,
‘and I am the daughter of
Annette-spicy-hot.’ We all get new
names.
Then we make a ritual; speak the names we
hate –
outgrown baby tags, old insults, unwanted
appellations –
write these down on strips of paper, then
scrunch them
and throw them onto a pretend-fire in the
middle of the room.
‘These we have finished with,’ I say, ‘I’ll
take them home
and burn them in the sacred gully,’ and I
do,
one quiet, quiet bush evening, mosquito
droned, magpie chortled,
in dappled sunlight, on a pyre of
oyster-bay pine
and gum twigs. The long-legged shadows dance
as Pigsy, Bub-bub, Spastic, Brown-Eye and
the rest
become a pile of ashes. I poke them with a bracken stalk
for signs of life but they are dead.
Let nothing be done to harm the children
is an old and sacred law.
Terry
Whitebeach
After reading this, we wrote down names
we'd been called and would rather forget, then the names we wanted to be known by/for. We stood around our own 'pretend fire' and threw in the bad names. I promised the children I would take them home and burn them. Below is a photo to show the names we didn't like being burnt under my sacred orange tree.
Today was another Golden Time at school and again I am blessed to have such wonderful students who use their hard-earned free time to make me something. Check out my fridge - its showcases the creativity of your children.
Thanks for having such delightful children! Have a great weekend.
