Instructions for Growing Poetry

Shut your eyes.
Open your mind.
Look inside.
What do you find?
Something funny?
Something sad?
Something beautiful,
mysterious, mad?
Open your ears.
Listen well.
A word or phrase
begins to swell?
Catch its rhythm,
hold its sound.
Gently, slowly
roll it round.
Does it please you?
Does it tease you?
Does it ask
to grow and spread?
Now those little
words are sprouting
poetry
inside your head.

Copyright: from Plum (Barn Owl Books 1998), © Tony Mitton 1998, used by permission of David Higham Associates Ltd on behalf of the author

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Tony reads his poems in a thoughtful, careful way. Listen to the two poems about growing, and hear how he makes the poem grow with his voice.

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