Fyling Hall’s Y6 have been getting poetic in English. We compared two poems by Kit Wright; ‘The Frozen Man’ and ‘Let’s Hear it for the Limpet’, before reading ‘Beachcomber’, a poem by the Scottish poet George MacKay Brown. The children then came up with their own ideas for beachcombing poems, with fabulous results!

Below is the original which inspired the children to get poetic in English.

Beachcomber

Monday I found a boot –
Rust and salt leather.
I gave it back to the sea, to dance in.

Tuesday a spar of timber worth thirty bob.
Next winter
It will be a chair, a coffin, a bed.

Wednesday a half can of Swedish spirits.
I tilted my head.
The shore was cold with mermaids and angels.

Thursday I got nothing, seaweed,
A whale bone,
Wet feet and a loud cough.

Friday I held a seaman’s skull,
Sand spilling from it
The way time is told on kirkyard stones.

Saturday a barrel of sodden oranges.
A Spanish ship
Was wrecked last month at The Kame.

Sunday, for fear of the elders,
I sit on my bum.
What’s heaven? A sea chest with a thousand gold coins.

by George Mackay Brown