Shape poetry

Concrete poetry is a form of verse where the typographical arrangement of words makes shapes and patterns that enhance the meaning of the poem.

By writing words on cut-out shapes and moving them around before gluing them down, young writers are able to experiment with word-order in a simple and playful way. This flexibility gives valuable insight into the pleasure of multiple options and the accidental resonances created by combining words in an unexpected way: a core feature of poetry.

Activities

To help you create some concrete poems we have provided three downloadable sheets of shapes: leaves and raindrops and a snake.

Leaves and Raindrops

Photocopy and cut out the shapes. Think of words linked to rain, tears, or leaves, wind, trees etc and write them onto the shapes (encourage pupils to think beyond the most predictable words) Pupils might even become the tree, or speak as the rain). Leave some blank shapes spare for connectives such as ‘and’ or ‘they’. The poems are very short. They do not have to rhyme.

Move the shapes about on paper until the order and organic pattern of the words is satisfying. Then stick them down. You can either create individual poems, or attach the concrete poems to larger displays that include pictures of clouds and trees.

Download Leaves

Download Raindrops

Snakes and Spirals

The attached template is of a snake, but it can equally be a worm or a mythical figure representing the spiral of the galaxy. The poems can flow from head to tail or tail to head. Afterwards it can be cut out; a hole put in the tail and hung on a string to make a mobile.

Download snakes and spirals

If you want to explore more concrete poetry online, or take poetry across the curriculum to the subject of wildlife, take a look at the Woodlands Trust’s website