8yo weirdly good at poetry - tips?

[Lindtnotlint]

My 8yo DD is the usual mix of strengths and weaknesses like anyone. I am not worried about stretching or accelerating her academically. She is doing well at school and is happy, all good. I am not interested in trying to make her into anything she isn’t, just wondering how to better support her interest.

She has always been very “creative” - we constantly find new types of art, plays, comic books, paintings, puppets etc that she has created of her own volition using bits of old cardboard and random pencils. Over the last year this general creative output has solidified into a real talent and interest in poetry. She writes poems off her own back in a notebook that are really strikingly excellent - all the technical rhyme and rhythm stuff of course but a load of really sophisticated and striking imagery etc etc. I have two other kids of similar age and see plenty of 8yo school work - she is definitely from a slightly different planet on this and writing stuff adults can appreciate that looks very much like actual published adult poetry. (This is all while also being entirely capable of forgetting her times tables and a terrible speller- I am under no illusions about her!)

We bought her a nice Michael Rosen book about poetry for Xmas, and a lovely poetry workbook - is there anything else that is fun and engaging for a real poetry writing enthusiast of this age? Like if this was netball or the violin or maths or whatever then there would be a load of obvious options to consider - but what do you do to really engage and enthuse a young person who is so into (and so good at) poetry writing? I don’t suppose they have a poetry camp for 8 year olds….

it isn’t really a valuable skill
It IS a valuable skill actually!
Do you know how many dozens of adults used to tell me not to waste time writing as a child? To the extent I didn't take A-level English or the Creative Writing degree I really wanted to do, because I was told it was a useless thing to do?

I work in marketing communications now and am quite well paid with an excellent career pathway because I never stopped writing. I still write on the side and it brings in a nice stream of income. I would have got here a lot sooner if I hadn't been pushed into being a science teacher because "we need more women in STEM" and "science is a useful degree" but no one said they only meant specific sciences as the majority are too obscure.

Poems at 7 and 8 turned into writing short stories and longer ones. I completed my first novel at 15 (it was terrible but that's not the point). It's all practice. No one needs to be looking to publish their first work. But you can't write a bestseller until you've written a bunch of duds (you just don't send those anywhere).

If your DD has a gift, OP, nurture it. Don't let people who know the value of nothing dictate what she can/can't do. Being able to communicate well is a really important skill and not enough people have it, even in top comms jobs (look at the amount of badly-written and garbled news articles on any given news site).

I would expose her, in a fun way, to different kinds of poetry. Or maybe get a technical book on poetry so she can learn the more nittygritty of it.

There must books really nice books with compilations of children's poetry or famous poetry. Both would be great.

But I do agree that left to her own devices would be better 😊 prompts can be cool but as a kid, I would have inspiration from random things, in the shower,....

This is the most profoundly depressing, materialistic and prosaic response I have ever seen on mumsnet 🤣

not everything in the world is about generating money, thank god.

you sound like mr gradgrind!

Look at the national literacy trust - they have poetry days, competitions, ideas, events... Could be just what you're looking for!

This!
I was good at art as a child. But people's keenness to tell me I was talented and promote this led to a sense of internal pressure that killed the enjoyment for me and killed my creativity and desire to make art.
Just leave her to it.

it isn’t really a valuable skill

As far as poetry dollars are concerned, DD has managed to get a hefty financial scholarship in Creative Writing at an independent school through a portfolio of her poetry. You might want to check out scholarships and bursaries, OP — a few schools do offer creative/arts entrance awards. We couldn’t have afforded to pay the full fees for DD, so she’s certainly managed to get something out of her talent so far!