Poetry Prompts: All sorts of ways to start a poem

Joseph Coelho, Waterstones Children’s Laureate 2022–24, wants poetry to be accessible to everyone. Everyone can be a poet – and these 42 prompts, or exercises, show the reader how easy and fun it is. As Joseph says, poetry is a positive way to express your feelings, emotions and experiences. And to make people laugh! Among his prompts are various poetic forms, like tankas, haikus and tongue twisters, and many different subjects, from bugs to Halloween to food. There is always an example poem, written by him, and lots of suggestions for starting points, ways to improve and ideas to make it your own. He explains useful language like similes, metaphors, action words and alliteration, and of course rhyme is discussed too.

The four illustrators have filled this brilliant book with gloriously colourful pictures that will inspire and delight young children. This is no boring textbook, but a friendly, accessible and simple guide to having fun with words. It would be fantastically useful in a classroom – perhaps alongside his Poetry Prompt videos – as it is aimed at children of about seven and up. Keen writers will find lots in it to try at home too.