Just published: 'Things That Should Be in a Poem', a new collection by Coral Rumble for younger readers
Things That Should Be in a Poem is a something of a change of direction for poet Coral Rumble, as it’s designed to introduce poetry to the youngest readers, from 5 years.
Says Coral, “I’m thrilled that the publishing world has, more recently, acknowledged that young children deserve to have fresh, new poems written for them.
“This hasn’t always been the case. With a rich heritage of nursery rhymes - and a host of poems by the highly esteemed ‘Anon’ - it seemed to make economical sense for children to be made to wait for new poems, until they entered KS2. Of course, there have been exceptions, but many school book shelves are stocked with old books of poems for their KS1 children.
“Thankfully, a new climate seems to have developed in recent years, and some wonderful collections have been published, written with young children in mind.”
“When writing poems for Things That Should be in a Poem I was determined to gather together an eclectic mix, to demonstrate that you can bump into a poem anywhere!
“Personally, I’ve found them in houses, fields, oceans, towns, trees... the list is endless! I've even found poems in people's faces when they laugh or cry or get excited.
“The collection is full of poems I found when I was looking out for them, and poems I sometimes tripped over accidentally. I also had to dig some out of my imagination - ouch!
“I want children to discover, in the pages, some things that I think should be in a poem, and I hope that parents and teachers will encourage their children to hunt for, and write, some of their own poems.”
Here’s Coral reading a poem from the book.
Find out more, and see and read some extracts from the book, at www.troikabooks.com/things-that-should-be-in-a-poem
Award-winning poet Coral Rumble already has two collections with Troika: Riding a Lion was shortlisted for the North Somerset Teachers’ Book Award 2021 and her verse novel Little Light was a National Poetry Day Selection 2021 and is included in Empathy Lab’s ‘Read for Empathy’ Collection 2022.