Welcome!
Hello, I’m Liz – this is my personal website; if you want poetry information, lesson plans, poetry writing ideas, interviews with other poets etc., then please see my other website, Poetry Roundabout. This is poetry information about me, me, me, and also poetry celebrations!
The Paradox Frog!
The paradox frog starts off as a HUGE tadpole and becomes a smaller frog…
The Paradoxical Frog The ambition of all frogspawn, in any pond or bog, is to change from tiny tadpole into a fine fat frog. But to be a giant tadpole is quite unorthodox, and to grow into a smaller frog – well, that’s a paradox. © Liz Brownlee The paradoxical frog lives in lakes in Africa. Scientists do not know why this frog lays eggs which hatch into huge (up to 24 cm) tadpoles, but which shrink instead of growing into small (up to 6 cm) frogs. It is not endangered at the moment.
CLiPPA Shortlist
Being Me, Poems About Thoughts, Feelings and Worries, by me, Matt Goodfellow and Laura Mucha, Otter-Barry Books, is on the CLiPPA 2022 shortlist!
The award is given by the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education Poetry Award, and is the one every poet would like to win – but the shortlisting is also a huge honour and we are thrilled and very excited.
Being Me was written in consultation with leading developmental psychologist Karen Goodall, and is illustrated by Victoria Jane Wheeler. This is what CLPE has to say about it:
“A collaborative anthology between three poets and an artist, singing together in harmony. Concern for the child and quality of the word is absolutely at the forefront here: these well-crafted poems articulate with skill and care a wide breadth of complex emotions and situations that may well be familiar to children, but they may not yet have the language to describe.
This timely collection strikes balance between difficult issues and hope, without the latter ever feeling forced or patronising. It is now more important than ever for children to be in touch with their emotions and to share with them the tools to help express and navigate them, which this collection performs brilliantly. Articulate, empathetic, and invites profound connection between poet and reader.”
The other books in the shortlist are fabulous too, one is Caterpillar Cake, written by Matt, who has been shortlisted twice out of four books! Keep your fingers crossed for us!
Empathy Day 2021
Here is a poem for #EmpathyDay2021, from Being Me, Poems About Thoughts Worries and Feelings, my Me, Laura Mucha and Matt Goodfellow, Otter-Barry Books. If you’d like to know more about Empathy Day, head over to https://www.empathylab.uk/ or @EmpathyLabUK.
Here’s to all the children – quiet, loud, happy, sad, strong, vulnerable, giggly, naughty, funny- whoever you are, happy empathy day!
Being Me, Poems About Thoughts, Worries and Feelings
Out now, Being Me, Poems About Thoughts Worries and Feelings written by me, Matt Goodfellow and Laura Mucha, Otter-Barry Books, is a book full of poems to support the mental health of young people – especially relevant this week, #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek.
For our launch we shared some of the poems read by young people – and a lovely job they made of performing them. Here is Sophia, and What to do With Worries by me.
New Book!
I’m very much looking forward to April 1st; not a day I normally think of quite so warmly, as usually that’s the day I am bamboozled and baffplussed by ridiculous statements from otherwise excellent sources.
But THIS April the 1st is the publication date of this beautiful book, Shaping the World, the first anthology I have edited. It is full of poems and facts about people who have helped shaped the world, twenty women and twenty men, and each poem is in the shape of its subject.
Nearer the time I’ll post a taster of what’s inside! But I am very excited about it!
National Poetry Day 2020: A Vision of Beauty from George, Lord Byron
This is from a series of videos we made in 2015 for the theme of Light for NPD. This poem is also about a vision of beauty. She Walks in Beauty, by George Lord Byron, read by people in Bristol who work with light.
National Poetry Day 2020 – Dazzle Dance by Sue Hardy-Dawson
We filmed this poem in 2015 for National Poetry Day’s theme of Light – but it fits with Vision beautifully! The wonderful poem Dazzle Dance amazingly performed by Lydia Elisabeth Wild, fire performer.
