It’s Dandelion Season!

The fields are yellow with dandelions – and soon they’ll be white with them, as their seedheads wait for the wind to spread them. That’s if we don’t get there first, blowing the clocks to find out what time it is. Children and poets love dandelions. So do I (even if I have spent a lot of this week digging them out of the lawn)!

Little wonder, then, that I chose poems about dandelions in both anthologies that I compiled recently. First, in the RSPB Anthology of Wildlife Poems, Alison Chisholm calls her dandelion poem Ladette – “Brash gold sticks out its tongue”, while Gerard Benson’s A Green Stink describes “aggressive little suns, yellow without compromise”.

Then, in A Time to Speak and A Time to Listen (where touchy-feely dandelion heads grace the cover), there’s Sue Cowling’s Dandelion Time — “Time blown / Not shown / By hands”.

And here’s my newly written dandelion poem, inspired by a dandelion that I found growing right through the drainage hole in the base of a flower pot, left out over winter at the bottom of the garden. As you see in the photo, only the tall stem and flowerhead are visible. The leaves that appear in my poem are there by ‘poetic licence’.

  

Doughty Dandelion

Admire the doughty dandelion,
groping in the dark,
growing blind, determined to be seen;
through prison pot it finds a hole,
a skylight in the soil,
from which to sprout its toothy, leafy green.

Its taproots long, however slight
its stem or flower may be;
it’s yellow, yes, but not the least afraid;
each plant will fight for sun and air
in any nook or crack;
its shoots will cut through tarmac like a blade.

Each specimen, however small
or spindly it may seem,
will find a place to flower and spread its seed.
Admire the doughty dandelion;
no dungeon underground
has ever stopped this plant we call a weed.

poem © Celia Warren 2013

More about St George & the Dragon

St George kill the dragon?
I don’t think so!
When he got to know him better
he was cool.
And the princess,
she was acting kind of girlie;
made it look like she was tied up
(he’s no fool).

‘If you want to be my girlfriend,
why not ask me?’
So the princess did and St George,
he said, ‘Yay!’
Now the princess, saint and dragon
live together,
and they still look pretty happy
to this day.

poem © Celia Warren 2013

Happy St George’s Day, everybody!

A Time to Speak and a Time to Listen

I am proud to announce the publication of this lovely anthology of 100 poems – classic and modern – some published for the very first time in this book – with a foreword by Wendy Cope.

“A Time to Speak has something for everyone – and the universal relevance of the topics covered gives it a timeless cross-cultural appeal.” Published by Schofield and Sims, 2013.

The anthology is available in both hardback and paperback and is accompanied by a 142-page Teacher’s Guide – a comprehensive handbook that supports you as you help children to appreciate the poems in A Time to Speak. This treasure trove resource provides concise teaching notes to introduce each individual poem to your class, guidance on reading aloud, flexible assembly plans and photocopy masters.

Meanwhile, you can see and hear Celia performing her poem Lion (from page 64 of the anthology: ‘A time to keep’) if you click on the link on the Video Poems page of this website.

Find out all about the books, together with special prices available for school purchases by clicking here.

World Book Day 2013

On this World Book Day, I thought it would be fun to share some of my own childhood favourites and adult favourites. So this blog is really a series of lists. I hope it may inspire you to tell me about your favourite titles and authors, past and present – and poets, too, of course.

My lists are not long as I am a slow reader. I have never developed what educationalists call ‘reading stamina’. This is probably because I’m not good at sitting still for long – I’m a physical fidget with a butterfly brain. I wonder if that is one of the reasons I am attracted to poetry – it can say so much in so few words: ‘short and sweet’, but with as much potential to pack punches, elicit deep thoughts and feeling or entertain with gentle whimsy as any novel.

So here goes. My lists:

First novel for children that I couldn’t put down: Heidi by Johanna Spyri (I was aged 7)

Other books that stick in my mind from my childhood (some of which I still have):

Five Dolls in a House – Helen Clare
Marigold in Godmother’s House – Julia Lankaster Brisley
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – C S Lewis
The Family From One End Street – Eve Garnett
What Katy Did – Susan Coolidge
Five Children and It – E Nesbit
All of a Kind Family – Sydney Taylor
Lion at Large – Richard Parker
The Riddle of the Rocks – Frances Cowen
The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
The Boy Next Door – Enid Blyton

plus lots of adventure stories by Malcolm Saville and others that I’ve probably forgotten, but enjoyed along the way …

Favourite poets that I read and reread when I was aged 7-11:
Walter de la Mare, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ogden Nash, Hilaire Belloc, A A Milne, Edward Thomas and others.

First novel for grown-ups that I couldn’t put down: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Novel I’m currently reading: Mort by Terry Pratchett (the 4th in his discworld series)
Novel I’m currently rereading: Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen (on my Nintendo DS)

Favourite authors for grown-ups:

classics: Thomas Hardy, Wilkie Collins, George Eliot, Jane Austen and recently getting around to enjoying Charles Dickens

modern: Anne Tyler, Iris Murdoch, Elizabeth Jane Howard, Daphne du Maurier, Jane Gardam, Mark Haddon, Susan Hill and discovering new authors along the way.

Favourite poets that I read and reread now:

Wendy Cope, Charles Causley, Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, Alison Brackenbury, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Roger McGough, Anne Stevenson, Edward Thomas, Sophie Hannah, Walter de la Mare, Phoebe Hesketh, G K Chesterton, Thomas Hardy and lots more.

Proud to Announce I’ve been Star-gazing!

     OUT NOW!

Star-gazing is my latest title in Collins Big Cat series. It is packed full of poems for children aged 7 and over, and colourfully illustrated by Helen Bate. There are poems that reflect everyday life in our world – indoors and outdoors, and poems that are out of this world.

ISBN 978 0 00 746531 6                £4.75

Sounds of Madeira

I’ve pegged out the washing,
a freezing job;
in raw, breezy January
fingers throb

but incongruous billow
of sleeveless top,
swimsuit and shorts,
makes me stop

and enjoy warm thoughts,
bringing ever nearer
recent memories
of mild Madeira

obscuring the pulse  
of a local bus,
wet wheels on tarmac
and squawk of rooks

till I hear again
sounds that smile and
cheer my mind
from sub-tropical island:

twitter of finches,
a cricket’s bright note,
the cry of a solitary
sheep or goat

or lonely cow,
a cockerel’s crow,
trickles and drips
where levadas flow.

And suddenly winter
seems warmer and clearer
by simply remembering
dear Madeira.

poem © Celia Warren 2013

2013 – Wishing Everyone a Happy New Year!

A new year, a healthy start,
A turned leaf, a fresh heart,
A warm hope, an open mind,
May life, this year, be human-kind.

© Celia Warren 2013