Thursday 27 August 2009

Advice and help for poem, please!!

Our Writers Group in Leyburn is joining forces with the Wensleydale Railway(the local heritage railway) to produce a booklet on the theme of trains (especially steam) which we hope to sell through their train shops.
I am writing and illustrating a section for children and here is the first draft of one of my poems.
It is for older children/ early teenage and for full impact is meant to be read out loud.
Advice and comments, please!


A Train is a...

silence taker
ground shaker

choo choo tweeter
coal eater

smoke maker
soot baker

steel stunner
people runner

carriage tugger
track hugger

piston squawker
tunnel corker

ear popper
traffic stopper

brake screecher
station reacher

8 comments:

  1. It's an excellent poem Denise (I read it aloud)and I also think it will appeal to pre-teenagers too. Best wishes. Lesley

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  2. Hi...You should add next sound.
    syu, syu, po, po

    best wishes...

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  3. Great idea!Super poem. Great outloud. Found choo choo tweeter a bit odd myself, but I don't know...

    Good one.

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  4. On rereading it I wondered, should the last two lines be reversed? Hm.

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  5. I like it Denise - hope you will be at the meeting on Wednesday. What I like about it is thatit echoes the sound of the train as you read it out loud.

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  6. Thanks for taking time to read my poem and for all your comments - very much appreciated.

    masa -thats a brilliant idea of yours, thanks! Its a great way of finishing off the poem.

    Dominic -I agree the last two lines would work better reversed - thanks for pointing it out.
    I'm also not sure about "choo choo tweeter".
    I simply wanted to convey all the different sounds on a train journey in some sort of way.

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  7. Dear Denise,
    thanks for all your kind words!
    Your blog also inspire me as I am a big fan of woodcut and similar things...I like them most in black and white...and sometimes with one or two colours...:) and that bed on the pic of your holiday house, one day we will visit your place ofcourse if we are close! ;)
    I come back for sure here on your blog.
    Keep up all the creativity and good luck with the poems! My english is too bad to help you I guess :)
    x Kathy

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  8. Even though the words are rhythmic and pertinent, but it just didn't seem complete. Using your words, I have tried to come up with what I would like to believe describes the subject in a bit more detail and somewhat completely, with the hope that you would like it. As I just discovered your blog yesterday, hence I am not really in a position to do anything about timeliness. Still, with the hope that you would find it useful rather than not.


    Long and winding, a mechanical silence taker
    articulated carriages working as a ground shaker

    rupturing the quiet, a choo choo tweeter
    with a fire in the belly, a coal eater

    with a heavy breath, a smoke maker
    with an inferno inside, a soot baker

    of metallic origins, a steel stunner
    with numerous cabins, a people runner

    colossus of an engine, a carriage tugger
    with its length and size, a track hugger

    fire and water forming a piston squawker
    gargantuan in size, seems a tunnel corker

    not polite in manner, but an ear popper
    shattering the peace, also a traffic stopper

    with a massive haulage, a brake screecher
    yet with it snags, still a station reacher

    Take care.

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