Contents
Foreword by Jacqueline Wilson
Friends
Me & You Mandy Coe
Tunbridge Wells Fleur Adcock
Friends Elizabeth Jennings
Sporty People Wendy Cope
Prior Knowledge Carol Ann Duffy
Sassenachs Jackie Kay
It Is a Puzzle Allan Ahlberg
Summer Romance Jackie Kay
I’m Nobody! Who Are You? Emily Dickinson
Family
Sleep, Baby, Sleep Anon.
New Baby Jackie Kay
My Baby Brother’s Secrets John Foster
Balloons Sylvia Plath
Sister in a Whale Julie O’Callaghan
Human Affection Stevie Smith
The Housemaid’s Letter Clare Bevan
Sidcup, 1940 Fleur Adcock
Sensing Mother Mandy Coe
Daddy Fell into the Pond Alfred Noyes
Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers Adrienne Rich
Uncle Edward’s Affliction Vernon Scannell
Grandmamma’s Birthday Hilaire Belloc
Indifference Harry Graham
Your Grandmother Carol Ann Duffy
Rooty Tooty Carol Ann Duffy
Grandpa’s Soup Jackie Kay
Nymphs, Mermaids, Fairies, Witches – and One Giantess
Overheard on a Saltmarsh Harold Monro
from Prothalamion Edmund Spenser
Sabrina Fair John Milton
The Mermaid Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Merman Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Wish Mandy Coe
The Girl Who Could See Fairies Marian Swinger
The Spider Clare Bevan
A Fairy Went a-Marketing Rose Fyleman
The Fairy’s Song William Shakespeare
The Fairies William Allingham
Thrice Toss These Oaken Ashes in the Air Thomas Campion
The Old Witch in the Copse Frances Cornford
Fire, Burn; and Cauldron, Bubble William Shakespeare
The Giantess Carol Ann Duffy
Clothes
My Sari Debjani Chatterjee
My Hat Stevie Smith
Purple Shoes Irene Rawnsley
Red Boots On Kit Wright
Warning Jenny Joseph
Birds and Animals
The Prayer of the Little Ducks Carmen Bernos de Gasztold, translated from the French by Rumer Godden
A Melancholy Lay Marjory Fleming
The Swallow Christina Rossetti
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat Edward Lear
The Frog Who Dreamed She Was an Opera Singer Jackie Kay
The Singing Cat Stevie Smith
The Song of the Jellicles T. S. Eliot
The Cat and the Moon W. B. Yeats
My Cat Jeoffry Christopher Smart
The Tyger William Blake
A Sonnet on a Monkey Marjory Fleming
The Cow Robert Louis Stevenson
Cow Ted Hughes
The Blessing James Wright
A Small Dragon Brian Patten
Toy Dog Carol Ann Duffy
A Garden of Bears U. A. Fanthorpe
Animals Sharon Thesen
School
Halfway Street, Sidcup Fleur Adcock
St Gertrude’s, Sidcup Fleur Adcock
A Poetry on Geometry Ruhee Parelkar
Inside Sir’s Matchbox John Foster
Dream Team Frances Nagle
Make It Bigger, Eileen! Joseph Coelho
The New Girl Clare Bevan
Mrs Mackenzie Gillian Floyd
The Day After Wes Magee
Squirrels and Motorbikes David Whitehead
The Fairy School under the Loch John Rice
We Lost Our Teacher to the Sea David Harmer
Ms Fleur Mary Green
Changed Dave Calder
Teacher Carol Ann Duffy
St Judas Welcomes Author Philip Arder Philip Ardagh
Birth and Death
You’re Sylvia Plath
Morning Song Sylvia Plath
Drury Goodbyes Fleur Adcock
Not Waving but Drowning Stevie Smith
Song Christina Rossetti
Remember Christina Rossetti
Fidele’s Dirge William Shakespeare
Stop All the Clocks, W. H. Auden
Break, Break, Break Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Ariel’s Song William Shakespeare
The Stranger Walter de la Mare
Children
A Song about Myself John Keats
What Are Little Girls . . . Adrian Henri
The Boy Actor Noel Coward
The Adventures of Isabel Ogden Nash
maggie and milly and molly and may E. E. Cummings
Equestrienne Rachel Field
Brendon Gallacher Jackie Kay
If No One Ever Marries Me Laurence Alma-Tadema
Colouring In Jan Dean
Amanda! Robin Klein
Halo Carol Ann Duffy
Good Girls Irene Rawnsley
Women
Minnie and Winnie Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Tarantella Hilaire Belloc
Unwilling Country Life Alexander Pope
Annabel-Emily Charles Causley
The Ice Wilfrid Gibson
The History of Sixteen Wonderful Old Women Anon.
Love
The Janitor’s Boy Nathalia Crane
Romance Robert Louis Stevenson
Expecting Visitors Jenny Joseph
The Twelve Days of Christmas Anon.
Dear True Love U. A. Fanthorpe
Indoor Games near Newbury John Betjeman
A Birthday Christina Rossetti
from The Princess Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love Christopher Marlowe
Love You More James Carter
How Do I Love Thee? Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sally in our Alley Henry Carey
Renouncement Alice Meynell
A Quoi Bon Dire Charlotte Mew
As I Walked Out One Evening W. H. Auden
Sonnet 18 William Shakespeare
Stories
La Belle Dame Sans Merci John Keats
The Song of Wandering Aengus W. B. Yeats
The Jumblies Edward Lear
On St Catherine’s Day Charles Causley
The Lady of Shalott Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Fruit and Flowers
This Is Just to Say William Carlos Williams
from The Old Wives’ Tale George Peele
Given an Apple Elizabeth Jennings
Moonlit Apples John Drinkwater
Millions of Strawberries Genevieve Taggard
from Goblin Market Christina Rossetti
What Is Pink? Christina Rossetti
Time of Roses Thomas Hood
Lilies Are White Anon.
Daffodils William Wordsworth
Foxgloves Ted Hughes
Spring Song William Shakespeare
Loveliest of Trees A. E. Housman
Time Mary Ursula Bethell
Places
I Remember, I Remember Thomas Hood
Cottage Eleanor Farjeon
The Lake Isle of Innisfree W. B. Yeats
The Way through the Woods Rudyard Kipling
Adlestrop Edward Thomas
The Counties Carol Ann Duffy
Rainbows, Moons and Stars
Spell to Bring a Smile John Agard
My Heart Leaps Up William Wordsworth
Above the Dock T. E. Hulme
Lemon Moon Beverly McLoughland
The Moon Landing James Carter
Where Am I? Wendy Cope
The Heavenly City Stevie Smith
The More Loving One W. H. Auden
; When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer Walt Whitman
Index of First Lines
Index of Poets
Acknowledgements
Foreword
There was a craze for children’s talent competitions when I was a little girl. My mum was very keen for me to take part, though I was an agonizingly shy child, who simply wanted to curl up in an armchair and read a book. I didn’t possess any obvious talents. I couldn’t sing in tune. I couldn’t manage so much as ‘Chopsticks’ on the piano. I had never had ballet or tap lessons so I couldn’t dance. However, as I said, I loved reading, so I was given a poetry book, encouraged to learn a long poem, and then told to recite it on stage. I was taught to speak slowly and clearly and do appropriate gestures, while wearing my party frock. A shiver of horror runs through me now at the very thought. However, the one wondrous thing about this terrible ordeal was that I learned many poems. Some of them I’d sooner forget. They weren’t poems at all; they were twee rhymes. I was encouraged to lisp dreadful verses, like:
I’m sitting on the doorstep
And I’m eating bread and jam
And I isn’t crying really
Though it feels as if I am.
Things perked up a little when I was given an A. A. Milne collection, though I still try hard to block out the memory of reciting ‘The King’s Breakfast’ at the end of Clacton Pier when I’d drunk several glasses of water and then was too shy to tell the talent-contest manager I was desperate to go to the loo.
Somehow my mum still felt I needed to be encouraged, and she sent me to elocution lessons. Suddenly I found myself learning real poems, taught by a retired teacher with a passion for Shakespeare. I learned chunks of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It when I was seven or so. I doubt I understood one word in ten, but I loved the sound of the language, the rhythm of the lines, the singing of the words inside my head. I realized you didn’t always have to know precisely what was going on to like a poem.
I’ve included several Shakespeare poems in this anthology, and some quite challenging poetry – but don’t worry if you can’t always understand everything straight away. Sometimes you have to read a poem many times to tease out every single meaning. But there are lots and lots of fun, easy poems too that you can gulp down happily in one bite. In fact, I like to think this anthology is like a very good restaurant. It’s got a very large menu, and every dish is carefully prepared and presented as beautifully as possible. You’ll hopefully love some things, like many, and maybe wrinkle your nose at a few.
The joy for me is that it’s my anthology, and I love every single poem in this book. I think my favourite is probably ‘Overheard on a Saltmarsh’ by Harold Monro. I first heard it at school in Year Four. Up till then I’d thought most poems had to have a particular pattern, mostly verses of four lines. I didn’t know you could have a poem that was a conversation between two people – and interesting magical people at that, a nymph and a goblin. The nymph has some green glass beads, and the goblin desperately wants them. I totally understood. I’ve always loved jewellery (I’m the woman who often wears a ring on every finger and has bangles clanking all the way up her arm). I saw those green glass beads glittering in my mind’s eye. I ached to possess them too. I muttered green glass beads on my way to school, as if they were a magic spell.
I like magical poems and there are plenty in this book, including several that really are magic spells. I love poems about mermaids and fairies and witches – and I’ve included a wonderfully strange poem about a giantess by one of my favourite modern writers, the Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy. There are lots of women poets in this book because this is a special anthology for girls – but many male poets are included too.
There are also three child poets. Ruhee Parelkar wrote a poem about geometry when she was six, Nathalia Crane wrote a love poem about the janitor’s boy when she was nine and I’ve included two poems by the wondrous little Marjory Fleming, who wrote fantastic but sometimes unintentionally funny poetry in the early nineteenth century, when she was very little. I especially like her ‘Sonnet on a Monkey’, which starts:
O lovely O most charming pug
Thy graceful air and heavenly mug
And finishes:
His noses cast is of the roman
He is a very pretty weoman
I could not get a rhyme for roman
And was obliged to call it weoman.
I think we’ve all had that trouble, trying to write a poem. I’m not very good at writing poems myself, though I wrote a great many when I was a teenager. But there are some poems that I feel I might have written, if only I had talent enough. One poem that really speaks to me – and to millions of others – is ‘Warning’ by Jenny Joseph, with its famous starting lines: ‘When I am an old woman I shall wear purple/With a red hat.’
It has inspired special shops that only sell purple items and a society for ladies of a certain age who visit art galleries and museums and theatres wearing purple with outrageous red hats. I was once lucky enough to meet Jenny Joseph in a bookshop, and I couldn’t help being a little disappointed to see that though she is an old woman now she was dressed in elegant tasteful beige.
The ‘Clothes’ section of this anthology is a short but special one – the longest sections are ‘Family’ and ‘Birds and Animals’. I’ve tried to choose a great variety of creatures, both real and imaginary – but there are six cat poems. I’m sorry, I just love cats. I have two: Jacob, who is grey and white and utterly gorgeous, and Thomas, who is black and slinky with enormous green eyes.
There are some very short poems and also a couple of very long poems. My English teacher at secondary school, Miss Pierce, read us the whole of ‘The Lady of Shalott’ and I was utterly enchanted and set about learning it by heart (though I can only manage a couple of verses now). I found ‘Goblin Market’ in a little crimson leather-bound book in my grandma’s cupboard, tucked behind her sewing basket and her box of toffees. I loved this weird story of the goblins and their fruit, and clearly so did she, because when she was dying she asked if it could be buried with her. But she had a mysterious little smile on her face. She didn’t usually like poetry at all, so perhaps the little book had been given to her by a long-ago sweetheart.
There’s a satisfyingly thick section of love poetry in the anthology. That’s the wonderful thing about poetry – you can nearly always find a poem to chime with a particular mood. If you’re feeling very sad and sorry for yourself, it’s just the time to read melancholy poems. If you’re feeling fond of your friends and family, there are selections to make you smile. If you’re fed up with your baby brother yelling or your mum nagging at you, then you’ll find poems that echo your feelings. If you’re feeling very lonely, then Emily Dickinson will be comforting.
I’ve tried hard to include some funny poems too. I think my favourite funny poem is Philip Ardagh’s piece about a dreadful school visit. I guarantee it will make any children’s author shriek with laughter. Teachers come in all shapes and sizes, as I’ve shown in my ‘School’ section. I do hope you have a teacher who really loves poetry and chats to you about it and reads it aloud beautifully (not in a special strange sing-song voice). If so, you’ll probably love poetry too. But if not, and you think most poetry is silly rubbish that you can’t understand, please give the poems in the book a chance. Maybe try reading them aloud to yourself. They’re all my special favourites, but they won’t necessarily be yours too. Read as many anthologies as you can – and then maybe write and tell me your favourites.
Jacqueline Wilson
FRIENDS
Me & You
The long-legged girl who takes goal-kicks
is me,
I loop my ‘j’ and ‘g’s.
twiddle my hair
and wobbled a loose tooth
through History all yesterday afternoon.
The small shy boy who draws dragons
is you.
You can multiply,
make del
icious cheese scones
and when my tooth finally
falls out and I cry in surprise,
you hand me a crumpled tissue.
I will be an Olympic athlete,
Win two bronze medals.
You will be a vet with gentle hands
Who gets cats to purr and budgies speak.
We don’t know this yet
but we will be each other’s first date.
One kiss.
That’s all . . . but
for the rest of our lives we never, ever forget.
In the meantime,
my tongue explores the toothless gap
and you lean over your desk and concentrate
on drawing the feathery,
feathery lines of a dragon’s wings.
Mandy Coe
Tunbridge Wells
My turn for Audrey Pomegranate,
all-purpose friend for newcomers;
the rest had had enough of her –
her too-much hair, her too-much flesh,
her moles, her sideways-gliding mouth,
her smirking knowledge about rabbits.
Better a gluey friend than none,
and who was I to pick and choose?
She nearly stuck; but just in time
I met a girl called Mary Button,
a neat Dutch doll as clean as soap,
and Audrey P. was back on offer.
Fleur Adcock
Friends
I fear it’s very wrong of me
And yet I must admit,
When someone offers friendship
I want the whole of it.
I don’t want everybody else
To share my friends with me.
At least, I want one special one,
Who indisputedly,
Likes me much more than all the rest,
Who’s always on my side,
Who never cares what others say,
Who lets me come and hide
Within his shadow; in his house –
It doesn’t matter where –
Who lets me simply be myself,
Who’s always, always there.
Elizabeth Jennings
Sporty People
I took her for my kind of person
And it was something of a shock
When my new friend revealed
That, once upon a time,