One of my poetry projects has been to create an anthology of poems related to my childhood years growing up in a small, semi rural town, Monbulk, 43 kilometres east of Melbourne. Monbulk was originally known as Monbolok or Monbolac - a local Wurrundjeri aboriginal word meaning 'hiding place in the hill.'    It was a place with abundant temperate forests as well as a strong farming community specializing in produce, orchards, plant nurseries, tulip farms and berry farms. So my poems are about place and related to the adventures and experiences that so informed  my formative years. The two poems I am sharing come from a period when I was about 12 years old and spent an abundance of time exploring the forest at the base of the valley, below our house. They focus upon perspectives from a small bridge.  The forest presented something of a wonderland for a curious child, providing endless opportunities to walk, run and ride my bike along the bushland tracks running beside ...

Haiku I have been word working with haiku these past weeks using my winter garden and surrounds to inspire a wellspring of thoughts and ideas. I share some notebooks jottings... Birds begin singing Morning squawks, high pitched chirping Lyrics fill the air Rosellas flit by Their chirping quite frenetic All flash and feathers Bright yellow lemons Adorn the small gnarly tree Ripening slowly. Worms in writhing clumps Goble through grit underground Spewing up castings. Pond water like broth Examine it closely it seethes with creatures At the garden's edge A dim, egg shaped patch of light Looms over the path. In winter, streets stretch Longer, greyer, hard to walk Without a warm coat. Light on the water Scatters and dances about I walk home becalmed It is Poetry Friday again... This week our host is Buffy Silverman. Buffy has been using photographic images and words to note seasonal changes. Visit her site to discover more. You can also link to a host of other poets from all round the...

  This is a message for teachers. Teachers who teach poetry, Teachers who wish to teach poetry more effectively. Take a wander through your school's library and take a closer look at the poetry collection. Have a really good look at the assembled books. Take some books from the shelves and open them and examine the poetry within the covers. If what you are seeing is a  collection of dated, unattractive titles and there doesn't appear to have been any additional texts added to the collection in over a decade -or possibly longer, then it's time to morph into a  Poetry Warrior! Don't get me wrong, there may well be some great poetry hidden away within those tired looking covers. It would be sad not to bring some of that treasure to the attention of your probationary poets. However, it's time to begin agitating for more books to be added to the collection -and fast. Something contemporary. Something more relatable to the many worlds young readers inhabit. It becomes...

  Thank you to Cue Learning for this blog post that follows our recent podcast  You can find out more about the supportive work Cue Learning's team of Sharon and Phil Callen are doing by visiting Cue Learning Education consultant and author Alan Wright says both teachers and students need to open their minds to the possibilities in poetry. It comes as no surprise that the greater exposure children have to poetry the more they can embrace it in their literacy and writing. But it’s just as important for teachers to ‘step outside their comfort zones’ with poetry, according to Alan. He told literacy experts Sharon and Phil Callen on episode 30 of The Teacher’s Tool Kit for Literacy that teachers can often struggle with getting students to connect with poetry because they’re not reading widely or ‘taking risks’. “Teachers find [poetry] a bit of a struggle I feel simply because they’ve either had a bad experience with poetry or they’ve had a very narrow experience with poetry,” Alan...

As a poet I freely admit, I love an opportunity to indulge in a bit of wordplay... Wordplay is an essential  life-source for poetry. For me, it adds instant appeal.  This poem uses a list structure and relies on a host of names to add a dash of intentional humour. Hope you hear it as the roll is called.   Roll call In primary school when my teacher called the roll each morning to mark our attendance our names were called and we had to reply PRESENT! Once someone said, PRESIDENT -and everyone laughed   I can still recall many of those names those faces I remember them well, our teacher calling on each of them to reply as the roll was  marked. They return once more…   Ben Downe –a flexible fellow Phillip Yagob – always hungry Al Batross- a bird lover Robin Banks- collected coins Rick O’Shea – always bouncing off walls Peter Houtt- lacked energy Ken Tuckey- loved fried chicken Con Ickle– had a pointy head ...