Sometimes poets and teachers say it is difficult to take a new look at an old subject. Not so: here is a poet with a strong visual sense, who looks at the world made strange by a snowfall and sees in it shapes and likenesses for which she finds fresh and accurate - and above all unforced - images. These are often surprising and memorable, the “white Oxo cubes” for example, and I shan’t forget the “chalked lamb in the hills of frost”.
Charlotte Organ, aged 9, receives Stopping for Death: Poems of Death and Loss, edited by Carol Ann Duffy (Viking). Submitted by Julie Crosland, class teacher of South Crossland CE Junior School, Moor Lane, Netherton, Huddersfield HD4 7HF, who receives the Poetry Society teachers’ newsletter. For Poetry Society events, ring 0171 240 4810.
THROUGH MY WINTER WINDOW. by Charlotte Organ
Through my winter window
I can see icing settling on the ground
A diamond necklace round a neck of grey
Salt, livening up nature’s dish,
A shaggy white dog bowling through nature’s fields
A bright torch, shining through dreary places
Feathers from a gigantic pillow fight in the sky,
Doves’ eggs that never hatch.
So where does it go, that soft white bright snow!
I know it melts!
Like a cloud of talcum powder.
I see white Oxo cubes, an opened box of chocolate seen by Snow White’s face A chalked lamb in the hills of frost,
Powder puff into bubble bath,
Sea-gulls’ feathers, stuck to bubble gum
A sheet of paper like tissue.
A white pancake
I’m really sad when it goes,
Into a pile of slush.
This is the last of Maura Dooley’s selections. The TES Young Poet of the Week column will resume on January 10 with the first poem chosen by reviewer and teacher-poet John Mole.
* Send any poems as soon as possible to The TES, Admiral House, 66-68 East Smithfield, London E1 9XY. Please give the name and age of the poet, the name and address of the school and the name of the relevant teacher. Poems should be original and no more than about 20 lines long. Please keep a copy as they cannot be returned.
