Inspired by Nature is a new themed Croak to entertain you with some of my own and my favourite famous poems written about nature and the outdoors. I hope it will stimulate you to get creative with words and write something yourself. If you do and would like to share them with us, please post them on our Facebook page.
Becca (Conservation Youth Worker: Green Pathways Project).
Skeltonic verse, also known as tumbling verse, is a fun form for a poem named after the poet John Skelton (1460-1529).
Here are the rules:
• Each line should be 3 -6 words long
• The last word of the line should rhyme
• Continue with the same rhyme until it runs out of impact
• Make the poem fun and energetic
Here is one I wrote about my job using the word “green”. I have italicised where the emphasis goes to help me read it aloud. I deliberately chose to not rhyme the last line in order to emphasis its importance; after all, rules are made to be broken!
My project is called Green Pathways and it works with vulnerable and disadvantaged teenagers. I take them outdoors and do projects and activities linked to wildlife and conservation. You could call it outdoor therapy. I wrote the poem to highlight that we create our young people and we all are responsible for how they turn out.
Why not write your own skeltonic poem about the outdoors and share it on our Facebook page.
TIP: You can choose a word and then use a rhyming dictionary to help find its friends.
My Job; in Green Skeltonic Verse
Outside in the green
With the alien teens
Who sometimes are obscene
Or just high on caffeine
Worked like a machine
Made to use a latrine
They love to make scenes
Could teach drama to queens
Cook them outdoor cuisine
Bonfired ‘tatoes and beans
So I can intervene
To keep their noses clean
Of their lives I can glean
That their family’s not keen,
Slaves to the drinks machine
Or their budget is mean
Give them trust, space, routine
Make them slap on sunscreen
P’haps off drugs they’ll wean
Stop acting Wolverine
These victims are between
The sky and sub-marine
Often they are unseen
In amongst what’s been created.
Wednesday involved spray-painting practice for a mural at Olive Branch then strawberry picking with another boy at the Green Backyard.
Thursday, out on the butterfly survey again. This time the weather was really good so we saw literately hundreds of butterflies! Then we were out for a snake hunt again and I finally saw my first adder, at last! And there were two of them, both hiding under the same mat, what a cool thing to see.
The methods of the study were as follows: between May and January of the following year, tadpole development at the field site was monitored by randomly collecting tadpoles and taking them back to the laboratory to be measured and their stage of development was noted. If an individual had not started metamorphosis by November it was considered to be over-wintering as a larva. Water temperature was continuously logged for the duration of the study. This data was used to calculate the mean fortnightly temperature. For the laboratory study, the tanks where kept at mean fortnightly temperatures and they had either a high or low food availability scenario. The tadpole’s development and condition were also recorded.
The study confirmed that tadpoles do over-winter at the study site. At the site, shortly after hatching the larvae began to form two distinct development groups. One group consisted of waves of individuals that grew on and then metamorphosed. The second, smaller, group continued to grow but did not metamorphose and this decision to over-winter as tadpoles was carried out very early in their development.