A poem of a dream of the woods: new writing and illustrations from wild adventuring

With new work by Jackie Kay, children from The Spinney Primary School and Elena ArĂŠvalo Melville

A ll children need a place to let their minds roam free, to mix up language potions, to create and write their own poems. As I

walked into the woods where the children were meeting Jackie, I thought of many other writers who have found words in the wild and given, in Jackie’s words, ‘paper wings’ to poems.

This anthology weaves together the landscape of the woods and the imagination. Although it is rooted in one patch of woodland in Cambridge, it is a threshold to so many more worlds of writing and wildness. / Helen Taylor, Poetry Advisor

JPrimary ackie Kay joined two classes of children from The Spinney School to explore their woods over four days in summer 2015. The invitation was not to give a masterclass in poetry writing but to work alongside the children, sharing discoveries and writing together. The children already knew the woods well. They had been adventuring there for several weeks with CCI artist Deb Wilenski and their teachers, Jenny Ryan and Emily Garrill.

They also knew some of Jackie’s work, especially The world of trees. In their very first visit Year 1 found places for phrases from this poem to live in the Spinney, and when Year 3 found them the following day they were intrigued: Maybe it’s someone’s dream and they left it in the woods. Maybe it’s a poem of a dream of the woods.

These four days were extraordinary. The children and Jackie wrote prolifically together. This collection shares Jackie’s new poems and a small selection from the children’s journals. They are illustrated by the children’s drawings of trees and monsters, alongside on-site sketches and a new Fantastical Map of Spinney Wild Woods by illustrator Elena Arévalo Melville.

A poem of a dream of the woods new writing and illustrations from wild adventuring

/ / /

Jackie Kay Children from The Spinney Primary School Elena ArĂŠvalo Melville

C

ontents

F

oreword: Jackie Kay

10

Saps and rings and things to say in the forest / Jackie Kay

12

Ink! / Antonia Anderson

13

A poem of a dream of the woods / Micah Green,

Alice Haughton, Hannah Saji, Michael Xu

14

The music department in the woods / Jackie Kay

16

The sound of the woods / Katie Whitehead

17

My tree would say / Elia Doza

18

The tree will say / Noel Thomas

19 Once upon a time / George Stephens

22

I am a twin tree / Lucy Stephens

24

Trunk / Jackie Kay

26

The Y valley / Jackie Kay

30

Secrets / Ashleigh Blythe-Summers

31

Lost and found / Reuben Huggins

32

How to lose myself / Jon-James Day-Simon

33

Abdullah likes this poem / Jackie Kay

34

The wind of the skies / Rocco Watson

35

The lost silver / Micah Green

36

Two stanzas for the Spinney / Jackie Kay

F

oreword / Jackie Kay

The woods, spinneys, openings, forests, the magical world of trees and barks and roots…

As an adult you return to your time in the woods again and again: the dens you made, the promises, the secrets, the friends, pledges, potions. You half imagined that you might just end up living there for good – like a child in a fairytale for days and nights and days. You remember counting the rings of the trees, finding strange shaped fungi, the fresh smell of new leaves, the crunch and squish of autumn ones, you remember it vividly, if you are lucky, if you still possess the tiny golden key that unlocks the door to your childhood imagination.

Working with the wonderful children of The Spinney took me back there, put the tiny key into my writer’s hand. They reminded me how the imagination works. The Spinney kids made worlds of the trees and worlds within the trees: they absolutely loved the place. All imaginative play is timeless; being with the children reaffirmed how vital it is that we have time without screens and tablets, without so-called learning tools, so that our minds are allowed to roam free. When our minds are free, the imagination runs along, happily keeping up.

There were twig ships and dragons, there was the royal castle in the wood, pathways through nettles. There were chefs in the wood and factories. Jobs to be done or stolen. There was the daytime world of The Spinney and the imagined night-time one where the stars would keep dancing in the company of the trees, guarded by the keepers of the night.

The Spinney triggered memories, and gave us brand new experiences. The children lost things and found them, made magic potions and drank them, and created stories to explain the dried up lake that lost its golden fish. And yet the music still played through the trees, the magical music of the deep dark bark in the music department in the woods.

It was fabulous to take part in such imaginative play, to join in and create my own poems and even more fabulous to listen to the outpouring of the poetry that The Spinney wove. We made poems by mixing ingredients, the language that dropped naturally from the branches and bubbled up from the roots.

Nettles, charcoal, bark, ivy, and sticky weed: we mixed with earth and soil and leaves.

Poems arrived out of spells. And we didn’t mind if our words turned to dust, or sawdust. The poem, we accepted, might take a while to cook. Often children put their poems in a solid magic cabinet to see the changes that would ring through. It was wonderful watching the poems being printed in the creative landscape of the woods and just as wonderful to watch them vanish with disappearing ink.

We formed a magic circle at the beginning and end of each day, drank our juice and ate our biscuits and shared our ideas. Everyone had different ideas about what to do and how to write a poem. Kirsten put it very well: ‘I love the wild woods, it makes its own decorations in its own mind.’ I wouldn’t have swapped my time at The Spinney for anything. Here are our poems, woven together. / January 2016

Saps and rings and things to say in the forest Drink the magic potion And dream of what was lost

Like the trees dream of saps and rings And nettles dream of nests

Dream of what became ash Our loved ones, and what was returned to earth

Like the trees dream of saps and rings And nettles dream of nests

The last words of the magic forest belonged to Tavi Who said this – sleep in the magic forest is bliss!

The trees dream of saps and rings And nettles dream of nests

The long piece of bark lost its tree, said Alice The bark is treeless, sleepless ones dream on, said Yijin

And the trees will dream of saps and rings And nettles dream of nests.

/ Jackie Kay (age 54)

Ink! The breath of a tree monster The legs of a spider Mix it up.

Add some enchanted feathers Put in the bark of a moving tree Grind up the mushrooms of a fallen tree.

Now you can write!

/ Antonia Anderson (age 8)

A poem of a dream of the woods High above In the cold night air A canopy In the middle of the forest.

The wind fluttered The leaves flapped their wings.

Many roots Waiting for another tree.

Dreaming Of bony fingers Like stars sparkling.

/ Micah Green (age 7) / Alice Haughton (age 8) / Hannah Saji (age 8) / Michael Xu (age 8) (using words and phrases from Jackie Kay’s The world of trees)

The music department in the woods I like the music department in the woods The way you can hear the air, The soft music of the trees and the blue bells ring And the ivy sing, the way the very leaves lift Their voices, drop their notes and sing, The percussion of the bark Inside Kirsten’s circle of trees, the made of wood Cello and viola, and all the wood instruments, The single reeds – basset horns and saxophones, End blows and double reeds, capped.

JJ will conduct the jazz band of the wood, The orchestra that does everyone good, In the pit, in the deep basin And even the resin will weep for good reason At the beauty of the music of the woods‌ And afterwards nettle tea, or peppermint, you choose, Left to brew for five minutes Your imagination stews for longer than peppermint.

You think of the way the branches played their bows The way the bark hit those notes.

/ Jackie Kay

The sound of the woods The sound of the woods.

Listen to the sound of the trees All the trees make a different sound.

Vines hang down Litter lies on the floor Toads leap around The bottles go crunch Children go wild As they are released in the wild wood.

Listen to the sound of the trees.

/ Katie Whitehead (age 8)

My tree would say My tree would say he is afraid My tree is afraid because of the wind I would say to my tree I am cold Animal is howling If I was an old lady I would say to this tree: ‘Look how lovely this tree is It’s lovely because of the bright leaves.’

/ Elia Doza (age 6)

The tree will say The tree will say: ‘I will wake I will move and I will go And go, go home.’ I will play I will remember playing.

/ Noel Thomas (age 6)

Once upon a time Once upon a time, When the lake wasn’t dry, Fish filled it Reeds grew in it Swans swam in it Herrings fished in it And those memories, now, today Keep the lake going day by day by day.

/ George Stephens (age 8)

I am a twin tree I like standing in the wood. I am a twin tree.

I like my twin tree. She is nice.

I am a girl too.

I like patterns but my sister likes things that are smooth.

I do not like smooth because it makes me fall asleep.

I don’t have a bed. Instead I sleep standing up with my sister.

I hope I never get cut down.

I hope the children come back soon.

I like the children.

I want to be bigger.

I don’t want to run away from the Wild Wood.

I don’t want to move school.

I like the Wild Wood.

I like the Wild Wood.

I like coming out and looking At the smoke from the fire dying down.

I soar up then glide down.

Nobody knows about me, nobody except you.

Only you know about me.

I liked going in the Wild Wood.

When I was a child and I was six.

Most things were taller than me.

I was really happy in the Wild Wood. It was nice.

I made a bug house with my friends.

I caught a baby worm but it wriggled away.

I still miss that worm.

I liked holding it. It tickled me.

I like squiggly worms.

/ Lucy Stephens (age 6)

Trunk The tree trunk is the colour Of an African elephant’s legs: It has the feel of a cheese grater.

Years later I remembered them – The lost children of the woods – And their names came back to me: Avia, Cheng Cheng, Aisha, Pavel, Billy P.

By then I was an old woman, My legs like those trunks, swollen And all of my secrets locked away In the old wooden trunk From India in my living room, Downstairs, where I hardly go anymore.

And my old heart is a wooden chest.

And my old feet are rooted to this place. / Jackie Kay

The Y valley The long tree boat will soon set sail – bye-bye! – Only to places beginning with Y Y is its shape – and that’s the reason why All the places have to begin with Y!

So off it goes with a good wind behind it: To Yemen, Yass, Yalta, Yuba City, To York, Yellow Knife, Yangtze To Yellow Stone Park, Yellandu! Phew.

To Yala, Yukon, Yamba, Yichang, To Youngstown, Yushu, Yushkozero, To Yelwa, Yabrud, Young Range, Yubari And finally, you guessed it, to the Y Valley!

Where absolutely everybody stops to ask Y. Where every answer begins with because…

(Y is only interested in Y Not in what, when, how, X or Z.)

The long tree boat searches for kindred, roots, Friends in the forest of trees: Barking family members, branches, Who hold out their spindly arms in winter.

Explorers find crucial things to take on water.

Y are we going where we’re going asks Yana.

Because we need to KNOW says Elia Doza.

We’re going to find the soft land across the water.

And to the new land we will bring: A rotting old bicycle, a soggy ball, a small frog, A marshmallow, shells, a toaster, a leaf, Some charcoal and a bath to fill with water.

What’ll we miss asks Oliver?

I’ll miss the rainbow tree, its pitter-patter Answer Lucy, Ellie and Yana together!

I want to take a banana, says Eva’s twin Ana.

And so off we set sail again On the boat of many questions Hoping we’ll definitely see sea-lions, Irrawaddy dolphins, red-lipped batfish,

Jumbo octopus, living rocks, secret caves, The magic box, a bearded vulture, aging stones A Gobi gerboa, giant oarfish, Pacu fish And, at the bottom of the sea, a sole buried wish.

Safe to say, we return to the Y valley always: A dip and a flip away, a skip and a jump away.

It is endless, the way one Y leads to another, The way everybody asks y, y, Y

The livelong day, sun up to moon swoop; Birds take flight like questions in the sky.

We take it all in with our bold-beady eyes.

Whoops. We’re off again, must hurry – bye!

/ Jackie Kay

Secrets A secret den And when you are inside You will see a secret chair And when you turn around You will see a bathroom And you can see a secret bath When you go into the kitchen You will see a secret button If you go into the secret bedroom You can see a secret bed When you go into the attic You will see a secret box.

/ Ashleigh Blythe-Summers (age 6)

Lost and found I am lost in words Without the lake.

It was just a Little make Of the wood Then I found A golden ore And when you find that The wood comes back to play.

The trees come back With their roots And then I look Into the lake And all the water Comes running home Like you and I. / Reuben Huggins (age 8)

How to lose myself Myself In the lake Then the lake had no water All by myself.

/ Jon-James Day-Simon (age 9)

Abdullah likes this poem Abdullah likes this poem That is shy to be read.

He watched it open its paper wings And spin, landing on his head.

Abdullah buried his head in his hands, But still the poem fluttered like a butterfly Across his ears, in front of his dark eyes.

Around the room Abdullah was in.

By now Abdullah had fallen in Love with words, with birds that are poems And poems that are birds – and so The little poem flew anew blushing, singing.

/ Jackie Kay

The wind of the skies Leaves are blowing The pond is resting Across the beautiful woods I always wonder what I could do In the wind of the skies.

/ Rocco Watson (age 8)

The lost silver Beneath the fallen tree Struck by lightening There lies something silver It was lost by me and found by me Then its power turns the woods into winter With deep white snow As the swallow calls its final call The silver returns to its place.

/ Micah Green (age 7)

Two stanzas for the Spinney In the Royal Castle of the wood The Princess Gatekeepers wait For the things that ordinary people wait for For peace not evil, for good luck not bad, And for life to change for good or ill And not just stay the same.

Meanwhile Rehan and Viren Keepers of the night, guarders of the night stars Hear the who whit who woo of The wise-eyed old wise owls Who bring the dawn to the night, dish out fate As the Princess Gatekeepers wait out of sight.

/ Jackie Kay

How we got here: Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination works in local wild spaces, leading projects of wild adventuring for people of all ages. This work is supported by Arts Council England and Cambridgeshire County Council, and as a social enterprise we raise money from trusts and foundations.

Thanks to a generous donation from Linda Baston-Pitt and her colleagues we have been working with The Spinney Primary School since 2014 to establish Spinney Wild Woods as a space for imagination and curiosity. We have led projects with three different classes, hosted a number of events and a wild exhibition.

The poems and creative work collected here are drawn from our project in spring and summer 2015, when we worked with Year 1 and Year 3. Every child’s contribution was important and we would like to thank them all.

Year 1: Megan Birch, Ashleigh Blythe-Summers, Sofia Bukhari, Yusu Chen, Zachary Cooper, Avia Doza, Elia Doza, Oliver Hardy, Andrei Karpovych, Roland Kreiter, Martin Kulesha, Pavel Lomonosov, Timofei Lomonosov, Ana Makljenovic, Eva Makljenovic, Yana Manolova, Ellie Mosbach, Billy Murphy, Majd Najib, Hancheng Pan, William Petchell, Jake Plumb, Layl Raydan-Watkins, Aisha Saleem, Lucy Stephens, Noel Thomas, Adam Wallman, Thomas Widdowson, Eryk Wojtowicz, Kelvin Xue Year 3: Antonia Anderson, Gabriel Baines, Lucie Barnshaw, Viren Bathula, Kabir Botre, Sevgi Cellik, Jon-James Day-Simon, Louise Dennis, Mervat El-Akkad, Charles Eschle, Emily Fallon, Rehan Fernando, Micah Green, Alice Haughton, Reuben Huggins, Abdullah Hussain, Jakob Kanz, Lilly King, Ivan Kulesha, Kirsten Limb, Harvey Linney, Yijin Liu, Octavian Marinas, Summer Midgley, Jack Pearce, Hannah Saji, Muhammad Ahmad Sami, George Stephens, Rocco Watson, Kate Whitehead, Michael Xu The children’s explorations can be seen in more detail in our project diary pages: www.cambridgecandi.org.uk/projects/footprints/wild-exchange

This publication has been made possible by the generous support of My Cambridge, one of fifty Cultural Education Partnerships across England, enabling young people ‘to confidently construct their own cultural lives, drawing on and feeling connected to the city in which they live’: The work that The Spinney Primary School children have undertaken with Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination beautifully illustrates one approach to making this possible. The children’s sense of profound connection to the Spinney Wild Woods which has been developed through playing, drawing, writing and imagining, has created memories that will stay with them for a lifetime. / Rachel Snape (Head Teacher) With thanks to: Mary Jane Drummond and Helen Taylor for their skillful editing and guidance; Rachel Snape, Headteacher of The Spinney Primary School, for sharing the Spinney Wild Wood with us so generously; Jenny Ryan and Emily Garrill, Year 1 and Year 3 teachers at The Spinney Primary School, for inviting us into their classrooms so wholeheartedly.

Graphic design and illustrations / Elena Arévalo Melville including trees and monsters by Antonia Anderson, Louise Dennis, Rehan Fernando, Abdullah Hussain, Yijin Liu, Octavian Marinas, Hannah Saji, George Stephens, Michael Xu Design concept and editing / Deb Wilenski

Itenhave been working with young children in wild places for over years and I haven’t yet met a child who doesn’t love trees.

They climb in them, shelter under them, invite branches and leaves into games, lie dreaming in them. The children’s trees in this book are all drawn from memory. I was struck by the detail and intimate knowledge each carries. They had noticed so much even in the midst of fast and dramatic play, as kingdoms fell and monsters rose from mud.

Children need trees and trees need children. We are very happy to contribute the voices in this publication to the work of The Charter for Trees, helping to maintain its pledge to be rooted in the stories, experiences and memories of young people. / Deb Wilenski, CCI artist www.treecharter.uk

ISBN: 978-0-9926259-4-8 Published by Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination www.cambridgecandi.org.uk © Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination, 2016 A Fantastical Map of Spinney Wild Woods ©Elena Arévalo Melville 2015 All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without prior written authorization.

CCI would like to thank Jackie Kay for permission to reproduce her poems.

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Registered Charity no.1126253.