childhood Archives - Scottish Poetry Library

The Grass Boat - by Imogen Forster

{ Poem }

We’ve been playing unobserved
in the old brickyard, a place abandoned
to its toy-town railway, rusty iron tubs.

and he held me in his palms - by Mina Moriarty

{ Poem }

I resembled a self un-sewn a child’s drawing in a hospital room
when I left that room I was wonky
walking the way a stain would run

Fi’baw in the Street - by Robert Garioch

{ Poem }

Shote! here’s the poliss,
the Gayfield poliss,
an thull pi’iz in the nick fir
pleyan fi’baw in the street!

Sarah: Fed Up - by Janet Paisley

{ Poem }

See ma mammy;
says eat yer dinner.
Gies me cabbidge.

The Night Watch - by Niall Campbell

{ Poem }

Shhh, what did you want to show
that couldn’t wait until the morning?

Was it the moon – because I see it:
the first good bead on a one-bead string

Slow Reader - by Vicki Feaver

{ Poem }

He can make a sculptureand fabulous machines, invent games, tell jokes,give solemn, adult advice-but he is slow to read.When I take him on my kneewith his Ladybird bookhe gazes into the air,sighing and shaking his headlike an old manwho knows the mountainsare impassable. He toys with words,letting them go coldas gristly meat,until I relentand let […]

My Heart Leaps Up - by William Wordsworth

{ Poem }

The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

My Papa’s Waltz

{ Poem }

The whiskey on your breathCould make a small boy dizzy;But I hung on like death:Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pansSlid from the kitchen shelf;My mother’s countenanceCould not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wristWas battered on one knuckle;At every step you missedMy right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time […]

In Mrs Tilscher’s Class - by Carol Ann Duffy

{ Poem }

You could travel up the Blue Nile
with your finger, tracing the route
while Mrs Tilscher chanted the scenery.
Tana. Ethiopia. Khartoum. Aswân.

11:00: Baldovan - by Don Paterson

{ Poem }

Base Camp. Horizontal sleet. Two small boys
have raised the steel flag of the 20 terminus:

me and Ross Mudie are going up the Hilltown
for the first time ever on our own.

Revelation - by Liz Lochhead

{ Poem }

I remember once being shown the black bull
when a child at the farm for eggs and milk

The Plinky-Boat - by Jen Hadfield

{ Poem }

Something near to true
night-darkness. The children
are playing the Plinky-Boat –
a xylophone made
from a reclaimed yoal

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