By Connor Armstrong, Year 8
The kererū sits in the tree, the mossy tree, the tall tree, the skinny tree, the beech tree.
His white apron rest on his skin,
his soft apron, his plump apron, his clean apron, his feather apron.
A green suit falls over his wings, head to toe,
a metallic suit, a wavy suit, a feather suit, a purply suit, a bird suit.
He lets out a soft coo,
a gurgling coo, a calling coo, a relaxing coo, a falling coo, a coo and nothing more.
He launches away with whipping wings,
huge wings, beating wings, grey wings, fingered wings, loud wings.
Crashing into a branch he sits next to more crashed pigeons, prancing pigeons, sitting pigeons, preening pigeons, cooing pigeons,
apron-wearing, suit-backed, big fat pigeons!
Some things to notice about this poem
This poem was written as response to 'The Tūī' by Paula Green which can be found in A Treasury of NZ Poems for Children, Random House, 2017 edition
Look at the way Connor builds on each image and sound and brings it all together in the final stanza. How might you use repetition to describe an animal?
This poem was written during a Workshop in Schools with our tutor, Gail Ingram. It appears in WRITE ON 51 Fun and Games.
© The School for Young Writers and the poet, 2019.
Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kereru_on_kawakawa_1.jpg