I read this poem as part of my work for National Poetry Day where I had been invited to share the morning with Coppull Parish School. I began with a school assembly and then moved into teaching poetry to Years 4, 5 and 6 in forty-five minute sessions. It was a very rewarding (and revealing experience).

I am a busy street,
I am a slammed door,
I am a honking horn,
I am a crowded floor.

I carry my coffee
In a takeaway mug
I answer my phone
With a last minute glug.

I am long and I’m neat
And my lights are all green
Just like the garden
Where I wish I had been.

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What kind of person does this poem make you think of? Do you think the person is happy being the way they are?

Anyone can write this kind of poem and teaching poetry in this way can be fun. I call it a ‘Local Portrait’ because it followed on from my thinking on ‘Local Words‘.

It’s built from a list which is tied around a very simple structure. Just start with ‘I am’ and away you go.

The idea is to choose things which are local to you, places or objects, and then describe them as though they were parts of you. In this example I become a street, a door, a horn, a floor. But my first idea was ‘street’.

Then think what kind of person you are. Think of a word which describes you. I chose ‘busy’. This helped me think about the rest of the poem.

I put my word into a Word Cloud and then surrounded it with lots of others which would help build up a picture of business. Next to ‘busy’ I added things like ‘bustling’ ‘hectic’ ‘crazy’ ‘rush’. Next to ‘street’ I added ‘car’ ‘crowd’ ‘traffic. I carried on like this until some words described others – so ‘car’ was followed by ‘horn’ ‘honking’ ‘angry’ and so on.

Pretty soon you will have a rich cloud of words all ready to burst into a poem.

Once the Word Cloud is full (it took about 25 minutes for my classes) then we move on to asking the children to write their line of the Local Portrait. I started them off with “I AM __________” and the children began to add so much. They bashed ideas together and crunched concepts to produce some powerful images.

Years 4, 5 and 6 of Coppull Parish School were fantastic. Their Word Clouds were bursting with ideas. The things they loved, the way they saw themselves and each other – all of this was wonderful to see. It was rewarding to help them move on from “I am a cook” to “I am a clumsy kitchen”. We saw flamingoes and dolphins, footballs and xboxes. We saw children who glittered and were crazy, bursting and clever. Poetry unlocked so many ideas and so much energy in each classroom.

My favourite was this one from a Year 6 child. I don’t think anybody could be unmoved by the elegance and power of this:

I AM THE SUN BEHIND A CLOUD

Wow.

Once each child had written their “I AM” lines (which took another fifteen minutes) then we read our class poem. Each child read their line and we moved through the class, building up our poem. Our Local Portrait took on incredible gravitas as we glimpsed the many ways in which the class was special.

And then, right at the end, came our last line which was shouted out by everybody: I AM YEAR 4 (5 or 6).

If you try this exercise then let me know. Drop me a line using the Contact form or Tweet / Facebook me. I’d love to hear how it goes.

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