Poetry and Childhood

Description

The first academic book about the poetry of childhood, this international collection brings together poets including Philip Gross, Andrew Motion and Michael Rosen and distinguished critics to consider key poets writing for children, from John Bunyan to Carol Ann Duffy. Children, poets, parents and teachers describe their responses to poetry. Cover Foreword Introduction: Taking the Long View - the State of Children's Poetry Today What is Children's Poetry? 1: Theory, Texts and Contexts: A Reading and Writing Memoir 2: Confronting the Snark: the Non-Theory of Children's Poetry 3: What is Children's Poetry? Children's Views of Children's Poetry 4: Ted Hughes and the 'Old Age of Childhood' Poets and Childhood 5: 'Childish Toys' for 'Boys with Beards': John Bunyan's A Book for Boys and Girls 6: 'Those first affections': Wordsworth and Mournful Adolescence 7: 'The Land of Play' - Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses 8: AA Milne's Poetic World of Childhood in When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six 9: 'The Penny Fiddle' and Poetic Truth 10: 'A child, barefoot: alone': Innocence in Charles Causley's Poetry 11: 'Not Not Nursery Rhymes' and 'Not Not Lullabies': How Carol Ann Duffy and Porarinn Eldjarn Refurnish the Nursery Traditions and Forms of Poetry for Children 12: Humpty Dumpty and the sense of an unending 13: 'If it rhymes, it's funny': Theories of Humour in Children's Poetry 14: Children's Oral Poetry: Identity and Obscenity 15: Poetry in Children's Annuals 16: Wicked Thoughts: Fairy-tale Poetry for Children and Adults Childhood and Nature: Changing Perspectives 17: Anthropomorphism Dressed and Undressed in Beatrix Potter's Rhymes and Riddles 18: Once upon a time in the realms of Eden: Children's Poetry in Brazil 19: Animal Poems and Children's Rights in America, 1820-1890 20: 'Imaginary gardens with real toads in them': Animals in Children's Poetry Children, Teachers, Poets, Readers 21: Poets in the Making: Ted Hughes, Poetry and Children 22: Articulating the Auditory Imagination: When Children Talk About Poetry They Hear 23: The Affordances of Orality for Young People's Experience of Poetry 24: Exploring Poetry Teachers: Teachers Who Read and Readers Who Teach Poetry Afterwords 25: Playing with words: Two Children's Encounters with Poetry from Birth 26: Writing Alongside at the Poetry and Childhood conference List of Contributors Index