Poem for the Creative Child

Poem for the Creative Child

by Kathryn Haydon

Shimmering golden canopy

arching above

as you sail

back and forth

through the crisp autumn air

on your wooden airplane

strong arms stretched out

grasping tightly to rope

that transforms the old, discarded board

into magic,

lifting you up

above the world’s sorrow and sadness

turning your ear to the whispering leaves

that sing of innocence,

promise,

expectation.

the rope twists

and in a show

of childlike abandon

you whirl

with glee

enlacing life with strands of delight as

yellow shooting stars

loosened from the tree’s grasp

cascade to the carpet below.

I make a wish,

this moment

frozen in time,

you on your wooden swing

sailing,

wings stretched out

into forever.

Short Story by Sarah V.

As I am walking into his room, I see a different color for every wall. Blue, green, purple, and yellow blind me as the sun’s shining rays come through the open window. To my left there is a bed with a happy face backboard and white sheets. The sheets look like one you would find in an army; neat enough to bounce a quarter off them. There is nothing else on his light-colored soft-wood floors. I can not say as much as for those walls. Pictures of him around the world border the middle as if it were a train. Posters of bands, events, and maps are scattered randomly here and there, but there is a bare spot. A door covers this bare spot, and I walk to the right side of the room. As I turn the spotless handle, and once I open it, I find clothes inside. Every color clothes you can imagine neatly folded into tiny cubicles labeled with the correct article. His shoes are covered in mud, though, hard-packed mud that covers the inner walls of the cubicle as well.

Ignite's Poem of the Month by Oliver

The Bud Tree

It is a sunny day.
While the squirrels are running up the tree
The water is flowing in our direction
And the leaves are finally growing back and the houses are putting on their air conditioning.
The bushes are growing bushy
and the fish are flipping and flopping while people catch them.
The grass is moving back and forth while the breeze comes by.
The sky is growing blue.
The clouds are turning into white puffs of cotton.
The mountains are getting bumpier.

Oliver, Grade 4

Congratulations to Ignite creative writing student Chance Lang, who won a third place award in the 2010 Torrance Legacy Creative Writing Awards for his poem "Space"! Chance was awarded third place for poetry in grades 6 through 8, selected from more than 350 submissions by students worldwide.

The Torrance Legacy Creative Writing Awards is an international creative writing competition, started in 2009 to honor Dr. E. Paul Torrance. Dr. Torrance is known throughout the world as the “father of creativity” and he dedicated his life’s energies toward developing ways to assess creativity in children and adults. His nearly 60 years of research has become the platform from which much of the research in the field of gifted education is based. Ignite will announce the topics and information for the 2011 contest as soon as it comes out.

Space by Chance Lang

a huge ball of mass
a huge ball of black
with a circumference to high for man kind
capable to unleash unlimited colors
mixed together to make unimaginable shapes and size
able to make something seen from one million miles away
a talent with no limits
and a power that is not controlled
the creator of beauty and shape
creator of all elements
inventor of planets that give us life
and some our painful doom
able to make explosions out of nothing
and light with a temperature unimaginable
something that can create a color that can kill you
can create and destroy chaos
and make it beautiful
can create a shape that can transport anyone anywhere

transport through invisible portals
all in the blink of an eye
the mass that made all
the food we eat
the people we turned out to be
and more we don’t know of
also like a giant mystery
a mystery book that never ends
this device and the thing that has all knowledge is called space
space is everything we know
and what we don’t know yet
space was the beginning of all life
we need to keep what space started
keep earth strong and healthy
this is what will give us life
or take us to the end
this is space

as we don’t know it and
as we do

More Free Verse Poetry

The Birds on A Cold Night

Cold night
The little birds huddle up close.
The birds, fluffy as a kitten.
Trying to keep warm,
the birds snuggle up on a branch.
The branch is small but no bird will fall,
Still trying to keep warm.

By Leila, Grade 3

The Star Tree

A cold night
Tons of stars
Crisp, white snow
The tree is very cold
like an iceberg
The tree is wishing
for warmth in summer.


The tree is warm.
It has a golden shell
It glimmers like the sun
It has green leaves, perfect and crisp.
Birds flutter by as a snapping turtle
crawls out of its hole to lay its eggs.

By Leila, Grade 3