ABSTRACT
One of the advantages of children attempting a small group of poems, rather than just one, is that in the variety the teacher can sometimes see real subjects surfacing; it is one of the ways to find out what children can write about. The invitation to complement set subjects with subjects of their own. Children’s poems come from their being stimulated but sometimes from boredom; from their being left too much alone or too much prodded. It is often hard to see any relation between the conscious activity of the teacher and what for the pupil ‘comes in at the window’. One particularly interesting – or inexplicable – ‘connection’ between pupils’ autonomy and the teacher’s activity seems to manifest itself when lovely poems appear seemingly from nowhere, after or during a time of intense absorption not directly related to the poem itself.
