Join writer Hollie McNish and add your voice to our poetry chain
This May we're celebrating creativity and wellbeing by asking you for a snapshot of the things that help you. We're delighted to have Hollie starting off the chain for us with her poem 'Things That Make Me Happy'.
Read below for steps to help get you started. Aim for your poem to follow the same structure with six couplets, beginning with 'outside my window'. Get creative and share your poem in the box below ready for the next person to read and be inspired by.
Things that make me happy
outside my window, there is blue
inside my bedroom, there is bed
at the far end of the kitchen
a kettle steams with hope
out of the back door sparrows chat
over the fence my neighbour waves,
pegging up her pants; in the park
plum tree buds slowly turn to plums
soon I will bite one; and swallow
and the stars above will show
once the dark allows them space and time;
everything is fine today, everything is fine
I'm Hollie McNish and I'm a writer who especially loves writing poems. They help me get feelings down onto paper or just cheer myself up; remind me of things I love and am happy about.
So this poem is very simple. It's a list of things I love. Simple things that make me happy; the sky, birds, plums (free ones from the park). If you fancy trying to write your own list, just have a seat at a window and look out, then look around you.
Begin the poem with 'outside my window there is / are' and then continue with whatever you see or feel around you that makes you think 'yeah, I like that'.
Try to think of five or six things and then end with the line 'everything is fine today, everything is fine.'
