Featured poet – Liz Brownlee

To celebrate the printing of our second issue, which is available from today, The Scrumbler welcomes Liz Brownlee as our first featured poet. We hope to have a featured poet as a regular slot on this site and introduce our readers to some of the wonderful children’s poets working today.

I met Liz Brownlee for the first time while visiting an amazing children’s poetry exhibit she produced at the Arnolfini centre in Bristol last summer. Since then I’ve been following her work, and we’re very lucky to include two of her animal poems in the latest issue of the magazine.

I’ve really enjoyed reading Liz’s animal poetry – the poems are simple, graceful, and full of gentle humour, and you can tell from reading them that they are crafted to perfection. Writing about animals has a strong tradition in children’s poetry, Ted Hughes being a notable example, and Liz’s poems are a nice contrast to his dark, sometimes downright scary animal poems.

Liz is also a talented illustrator and illustrates her own animals with detailed, delicate line drawings.

Liz has an MA from Bath Spa University in writing for young people. She has been published in over sixty anthologies and her first full collection of animal poems is planned to come out in 2011 from Iron Press (www.ironpress.co.uk).

You can find out more about Liz and see more of her work, including some fantastic animated poems, on her own website (www.poetlizbrownlee.co.uk).

We’re very happy to present one of Liz’s poems here – enjoy.

song

my
spill
and
sky
the
touch
I
until
ascent
vertical
a
on
joy
my
take
I

Skylark

Alauda arvensis

• The skylark lives all over Europe, in some parts of Asia, and as far east as Japan. They like open ground, with vegetation which isn’t too high. The male skylark is famous for its territorial display – between April and August, the breeding season, it ascends into the sky and sings a song which seems to celebrate summer.

‘Skylark’ and Skylark illustation by Liz Brownlee, copyright © Liz Brownlee, 2010 used with permission of the author.