I am the author of seven books of poetry, the mother of three (grown-up) children, the grandmother of seven grandchildren and the owner of two large dogs.

Before becoming a full-time writer, I worked part-time as a creche leader at a south London adult education college. Before that I was a student myself, at New Hall College, Cambridge, where I read moral sciences and English.

And before that, of course, I was a child - white, middle-class, rather plain, the last child of quiet elderly parents, and something of a loner and a rebel - a typical future poet, in other words.

My earliest memory is of the magic of a language I did not understand and, more importantly, not knowing or caring that I did not understand. What I remember so poignantly are the words of a Scottish lullaby sung by my mother: “O can ye sew cushions, O can ye sew sheets, O can ye sing ballaloo when the bairnie greets?” - words I heard as something like “caneeso-cooshoo-ancaneeso-sheee”.

The sounds were like big shapes and strange shadows, free of meaning. Looking back, I think this response to language - with the heart; with the soul; with the body - is the most fundamental place where poetry happens. Last of all, and only when we are already starting to leave our childhoods behind us, do we respond with the head - the stubborn and arrogant, unpoetical brain.

My father’s influence came much later. And it was completely different. It was brainteasing, and competitive. We thought up self-referential words (recherche, awkwardnessful, pentasyllabic); we shared palindromes and tongue-twisters; we wrote sentences where each word was longer by one letter than the word that went before it (“I do not know where,” for example); we wrote paragraphs without “e“s, and without the verb “to be”. We experimented with Franglais (where “Honi soit qui mal y pense” becomes “I honestly think I’m going to be sick”) and, later, with Greek and Latin.

And always coming back to what was our old favourite, combining as it does the simple repetition of a lullaby with a meaning that does your head in:

“Alice where James had had had had had had had had had had had the teacher’s approval.”

I’ll give the answer next week, for those of you who don’t already know. In the meantime, I am looking forward to lots of poems to read.

Selima Hill

Selima Hill was last week awarded the Whitbread poetry prize for ‘Bunny’. Please send poems, no longer than 20 lines, to Friday magazine, Admiral House, 66-68 East Smithfield, London E1W 1BX. Include the poet’s name, age and address, the name of the submitting teacher and the school address. Or email: friday@tes.co.uk