Hello,
My other interest - helping children be poets...
This is a gardening site, but I thought I'd just let you know about my new site for teachers, in case you are one, or have a relative or friend who teaches, and might find it handy.The site is: http://poems4pockets.blogspot.co.uk/, and entitled: 'Poetry-Teaching Tips'.
As a lover of gardens, nature and wildlife, I frequently draw on their riches in my ideas for creative writing in schools.
Parents, grandparents...
The site is also relevant to parents, grandparents and other carers of children, offering suggestions for helping youngsters to develop linguistic skills, verbal and written, through enjoyable and natural activities.But now it's time to get back to the garden - and those wretched weeds!Kate
Hello,
Hope you gardeners are all geared up for a peaceful Easter in your spring gardens, with your mowers and trimmers and chain saws and strimmers and rotivators and generators and... ear plugs.
With global warming really coming into its own now, we're set for a warm, balmy Easter break, and what with all those spring bulbs lined up, waiting for good homes in the soil, which in turn is probably waiting in a packet, or under last year's weeds, it looks to be a pretty busy Easter too. But let's try and make sure 'warm' doesn't boil up into 'hot under the collar', and 'balmy' doesn't become 'barmy', and 'break' doesn't crack up into 'break down' - oh - and that next door get a minute or two's peace between your machines... or is it the other way round in your case?
This is also a time for programme planning and speaker bookings: I'm taking bookings at the moment for this year and early next, but please note that I'm currently only planning as far as spring 2016.
I'm also open to requests for personalised poems, or purchase of poems from my website. Please contact me to discuss any thoughts or requests.
Happy Easter!
Kate
Email: katewilliams.poetry@gmail.com
Tel. 01446 760124
PS: If you're a teacher as well, you might like to browse my other website, featuring poems for and by children, and workshops for schools:
poemsforfun.wordpress.com
Hello!
My December entertainments come with a seasonal sparkle - tinsel, candle-light and a Christmas rhyme or two, as well as the usual trappings - guitar, ukulele, some ranting and raving, a couple of anecdotes, and a bit of audience involvement in the middle...
Yes, I shall be requiring a little gardener-participation (a) to check you're still awake and (b) to check that you're true gardeners (which gives a hint as to the sort of involvement I shall be requiring). There will also be the odd - very odd - Triffid from my garden to send a shiver down the spine, unless, by some glorious and extraordinary chance, it's dead by then.
I still have some dates available in December, and beyond of course, and can confirm fee and other details on enquiry. I have one request though: if thinking of slotting some rhyme fun between other events at your Christmas social - supper, raffle, speeches, etc. - please bear in mind that I may be wilting by the time it gets to my turn, having watched you all guzzling the mince pies and mulled wine while sipping my sensible water for the past 3 hours, and therefore ask a little extra for long-drawn-out events. In fact, I advise against rhymes at the end of a long evening for your sake too. Although short and punchy, they take a little listening to. Have a look at my sample ones. You might need a swig or two to get through my ukulele efforts, though - I only know 3 chords.
Meanwhile, good luck with wrapping up those Christmas presents - that cursed garden fork, for instance! If it proves impossible, just make up a rhyme about it instead. That's what I do.
Happy gardening! (Or at least, green-bag-cramming.)
Kate
Kate Williams
Rhymester for gardening clubs
Entertainment title: 'The Grim Side of Gardening'
Email: katewilliams.poetry@gmail.com
Tel. 01446 (Vale of Glamorgan) 760124.
Welcome to my new website, dedicated to gardeners and gardening clubs!
First of all, well done for being gardeners! I find the whole thing one big hassle, as you'll glean from my rhymes. Personally, wandering about over a garden, dreaming about how it could be, with the wave of a magic wand, or thinking up a verse about how it'll never happen and the unfairness of it all, seems much less taxing and more relaxing than actually doing anything about it - like getting off those trampled shoots.
So rather than slave away over my own patch, I let it grow almost as wild as the fields beyond, and use the wilderness and its ever-changing sky-drop as a source of inspiration for word play and rhyme craft, and rather than stuff all my scribbles into a drawer, I offer them around to gardening clubs in the form of a one-hour entertainment, complete with commentary and the odd (very odd, probably) song with ukulele or guitar.
You'll find details on the other pages. Please feel free to contact me at any time for further details, or to discuss any ideas or possibilities for event arrangements.
I'll be swapping some of the rhymes in and out through the year, roughly in line with the seasons. These current ones are really hangers-on from harvest time, so I'm behind already - great start! But keep an eye out: my winter lot are on their way.
Happy non-gardening, i.e. time off, and don't tell me there are still things to be done out there in this murky, miserable, Halloween gloaming! I don't want to know.
Kate
Kate Williams
Rhymester for gardeners
(Also published children's poet)
Email: katewilliams.poetry@gmail.com
Tel. 01446 760124
