Poetry to their ears
I had a very favourite book of poems when I was a child - “Slippery-dip” by C.J. Dennis. My mother had the most wonderful way of making each poem jump off the page… I can still remember my heart pounding as she recited…
“Hist! . . . . . . Hark!
The night is very dark,
And we’ve got to go a mile or so
Across the Possum Park.”
…and giggling together as I attempted to pronounce the name of the funny little insect called ‘Triantiwontigongolope’.
“There’s a very funny insect that you do not often spy,
And it isn’t quite a spider, and it isn’t quite a fly;
It is something like a beetle, and a little like a bee,
But nothing like a woolly grub that climbs upon a tree
Its name is quite a hard one, but you’ll learn it soon, I hope.
So, try:
Tri-
Tri-anti-wonti-
Triantiwontigongolope.”
One of the things I loved about this book was its Australian flavour - there were kookaburras and wattle trees, possums and references to Woolloomooloo, Ballarat and Gundagai. Books, poetry and songs can take you to far-off, distant places, but there’s something special about seeing your home, your people, your creatures and plants represented.
Here are a couple of very old Australian poems (published in The Bulletin more than 100 years ago) that make fabulous knee bounces. Pop your child on your lap and gallop off to the land of poetry together…
“Johnny and Jane and Jack and Lou;
Butler’s Stairs through Woolloomoolloo:
Woolloomoolloo, and ‘cross the Domain,
Round the Block, and home again!
Heigh, ho! Tipsy toe,
Give us a kiss and away we go.”
“I had a little pony
His name was Dapple Gray
I sent him down to Melbourne
To win the Cup one day
He couldn’t beat Poseidon
For Poseidon’s hard to beat
And now he pulls a hansom cab
Along a Sydney street”
There’s also a bunch of research about the positive impacts of the rhyme and rhythm in poetry on the language skills of babies and children, including a recent PhD by linguist, Laura Hahn. The exact science is complicated and needs more research but you really can’t go wrong with introducing a little poetry into your daily routine!
PS Being Australian is a little complicated. While our First Nations people have made this land their home for tens of thousands of years, colonisation has erased much of their culture, including songs, stories and language. I live on Wadawurrung Country and while I would dearly love to share the music of this land, I have not yet been able to make connections with anyone who can share this knowledge. But look out for a post soon about First Nations songs from other parts of our amazing country…
