The exercises explored in the below videos aim to help inspire and encourage creative poetry writing in schools. They work particularly well in multicultural schools where pupils speak many different languages and help to demonstrate how languages can be used as a tool for creativity.
The activities have been devised by writer Kate Clanchy who runs a Poetry Hub at Oxford Spires Academy in East Oxford where pupils speak over 30 different languages. The Poetry Hub has been working with the Prismatic Translation strand of Creative Multilingualism to invite writers from around the world to lead poetry workshops with the pupils in different languages, such as Polish, Swahili, Portuguese and Arabic.
The Surrealist Game
The Table
This activity uses Edip Cansever's poem 'The Table', translated by Richard Tillinghast, to inspire pupils to create their own poems. The full poem can be found at: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rwtill/Poems/table.html
Burnt Kabob
This activity uses Rumi's poem 'Burnt Kabob', translated by Coleman Barks, to inspire pupils to create their own poems. The full poem can be found at: https://www.questformeaning.org/spiritual-themes/burnt-kabob-rumi/
I Cannot Remember My Mother
Find more resources to inspire pupils to engage creatively with languages >>