Wandering Words prompts for young writers
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This resource pack includes a warm up prompt, followed by 3 prompts responding to poems by Laura Strickland, Ananditha Venkatramanan, and Chloe Whitehead.
Prompt 1: Warm up
Think of a small, vivid memory from your childhood — it could be funny, strange, or ordinary — and jot down five quick sensory details (what you saw, heard, smelled, touched, tasted)
List five objects you own or remember owning (clothes, toys, books, etc.) and beside each one, write a word or two about the person or memory you associate with it.
Write a few lines describing a place that feels special or familiar to you, using different senses to bring it to life.
Prompt 2: Caught in the Corner Shop
by Laura Strickland, published in Northern Gravy
How does this poem, based on a memory from the writer’s childhood in Shipley, invite you into the action?
Why does the poem’s narrator wait until the fourth stanza (verse) to reveal her relationship to the girl she sees flying up the hill? What effect does this have?
Try writing about a turning point in a childhood friendship OR
Choose something that happened in your neighbourhood (not necessarily something bad or illegal!) and make the most dramatic moment your first line.
Prompt 3: Home
by Ananditha Venkatramanan, published in Foyle Young Poets 2023 The Roots Belong to You
This is a poem about homesickness and belonging. Which descriptions in it do you find the most striking, and why?
Try writing about the different characters at an extended family gathering. You could use “tomorrow, I’ll meet…” as a starting line. OR
Pick a place that feels like coming home for you, and write the memories you associate with it. Use different senses (what does it look, taste, smell, sound and feel like?) and include specific details to give your poem a strong sense of place.
Prompt 4: The Ten Wardrobes
by Chloe Whitehead, published in Foyle Young Poets 2023 The Roots Belong to You
In this poem, the writer paints one-line portraits of 10 different characters through the contents of their wardrobes. What do these lines reveal about each person?
What do you think the relationship is between the people in this poem and the narrator?
Pick a theme that you could use to create your own portrait poem - for example, ‘Ten train passengers’, ‘Ten coffee orders’, or ‘The front doors of Shirley Street’.
