Tuesday 9 July 2019

Dinosaur poets, assemble! What inspired your dinosaur poem? (Part 3)

Our newest children poetry anthology is Dragons of the Prime: Poems about Dinosaurs, edited by Richard O'Brien with notes by Will Tattersdill, aimed at children aged 8+. We asked the poets what inspired them to write their poems...

***

Jane Newberry 
When my son was four he took part in the Palaeontologist race at Sports Day. Ned taught me everything I know about dinosaurs and took me to the Natural History Museum.

Sophie Kirtley 
I'm always inspired by young people who do amazing things. When I read that Mary Anning was 12 (yes, 12!!) when she discovered her first dinosaur fossil (an ichthyosaur skull poking out of a rock face - how exciting must THAT have been?!) I knew that I just had to write about her. I imagined how it would feel to be a young Georgian girl stomping along a wild Dorset beach, dinosaur hunting, and I tried to literally put myself in Mary Anning's pioneering shoes.

Illustration of Lawrence's poem from the book
Lawrence Schimel 
I wrote my poem because I've always been struck by the disparity between the Tyrannosaurus' sheer bulk and ferocity, on the one hand, and its tiny, near-useless arms. Not to over-anthropomorphize, but it seems easy to imagine these creatures acting like bullies because of their self-consciousness about their body image--or otherwise trying to compensate, like the T. Rex in my poem.

Emma Rose Millar 
I was inspired to write my poem Dawn of the Dinosaur while visiting Oxford Natural History Museum, where my son and I learned about the evolution of dinosaurs, beginning with lobe-finned fish. The museum is free to enter, with loads of interesting skeletons, fossils and crystals to see.

Image from The Land Before Time, which inspired Wye Haze's poem
Wye Haze
Like many poems, my dinosaur poem is about more than one thing. It's about dinosaurs, of course, and it's also about cherishing time with your family, which is something which was on my mind when I wrote it.

Lorraine Mariner 
I called myself a dinosaur to a friend because I felt I was falling behind with new technology and that gave me an idea for the poem.


***
Dragons of the Prime: Poems about Dinosaurs is on sale now – buy your copy for £10.99 from our webshop!

No comments:

Post a Comment