On How to Write a Children's Poem

Visit Literary Hub to learn about the elements of a good children's poem, as told by Penelope Lively. One of the main tenents? "Do not be afraid to be silly." Lively begins: "What should a child find in a poem? Not in poems written specifically for children, but in poetry thought to appeal to children? Reading poems to include in an anthology of 'poetry for children,' it struck me that the requirements for adult and child readers of poetry are much the same." We'll step into a bit more of this article beginning there: 

Children read poetry as adults do in the sense that each will find their own significance in a poem—it will appeal, or alarm, or intrigue, or not strike a chord at all. But children read as literary innocents, and I think for that reason what they read has a special impact. Adults are seasoned readers; we have a backlog of reading experience, according to which we make judgements, comparisons, appraisals, rejections. The child reader comes fresh to the whole activity of reading, and is thus the more impressionable. Those who write for children have to be aware of this, I feel, and proceed accordingly. The child must be involved at once—seized by the first line or two—or you risk losing your reader at the outset.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves …
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan …
Now this is the Law of the Jungle – as old and as true as the sky …

I remember being very conscious of this when I was writing—prose, not poetry—for children, long ago. The story had to grab the child reader’s attention on the first page, through action, character or setting. Poetry is in any case more immediate, more concise, than prose—not that that makes it any easier for the writer to find that essential combination of language and content which will engage the reader within a few lines.

Read more at Literary Hub.