ABSTRACT
The children in this chapter have been set free to write unusual sentences. The teacher has shown them a picture by Chagall, and pointed out he paints impossible things: lovers flying on horseback, scarlet cockerels against a bright sky, dreams, monkey-judges… John Cotton has written a poem, ‘Chagall’, in which he explores more of these images (Sedgwick 1994a:2). In writing about what impossible things they would paint if they were set free to do so, children explore their relationships with the world around them in all its joys and griefs. Here are extracts from poems by ten-year-olds: I wish I could paint the sound of the stars glowing the smell of the wind blowing in my face… I wish I could paint my Grandad back because I never saw him…
