Can adults learn anything from the poems children write?
I think we can often learn things from the poems that children write. You learn what interests them, what amazes them, and what they are puzzled by. When I am reading children’s poems, I mean, I don’t know how to particularly say whether this poem or that poem is good or bad. I think what I always look for is something that feels authentic. Now that is very vague and woolly, but sometimes when you read poems and you think, “Well, maybe they are just repeating something they’ve heard and maybe not thinking or reflecting or playing in some kind of way that is true to themselves”. It is just a hunch you have when you’re reading, so the word authentic is the word I use to myself when reading children’s poems.
