Tales From a Ten-year-old life

Really inspired by the work of Riad Sattouf. He’s created a whole series of work inspired by the stories of a ten year old. I love how this vehicle allows him to view very complex issues in a new light. In the sequence below he unpacks homosexuality and gender.

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I recommend the graphic novel. It’s called Esther’s Notebooks and there are 3 books in the series.

It got me thinking about the stories children tell us. When we create poems we try to find a new novelty to things we are used to seeing everyday. This allows us to breath new life into the mundane. It also gives us the license to play!

So I want you to have a conversation with an under 10 year old today. I want you to log the results and try to start a poem about the interaction.

Consider this:

Can you remember something you’ve thought about when you were a child. Something that didn’t make any sense at the time?

Freewrite on that subject. You could write a version in the voice of your younger self or you could just write it by what you remember.

Consider the first time you realised something wasn’t as you thought it was. How did you feel? What happened?

Our memories from childhood hold great fodder for poems. All you have to do is DIG and let your imagination make the rest up!

enjoy