Explore the poem

This poem has some words used in Jamaica where Valerie Bloom was born. Look these up then let your imagination travel and enjoy the sounds of these special words.

Don’t put on a special voice to perform this poem. Make the poem your own by saying it naturally in your own accent.

Notice the shape of the poem. The first and last lines of each verse are short, with two strong beats. The middle lines are longer with 3 or 4 strong beats each. What can you do to keep that shape as you speak it?

You might also like to write your own poem about someone who is special to you. Begin each verse with the name of your special person followed by ‘is’.

About Valerie Bloom

Valerie Bloom was born in Clarendon Parish, south Jamaica, and moved to England in 1979. After studying English with African and Caribbean Studies at the University of Kent, she began to write poetry. Her first collection Touch Mi, Tell Mi was published in 1983. Bloom, like many of her contemporaries from Jamaica, often writes in a literary version of Jamaican patois, a rich and creative language, with English and West African influences, that emerged from the troubled history of British enslavement of African people. Many Jamaican writers, including Bloom, use the full range of language available to them, sometimes choosing to write in Standard English, sometimes drawing on Jamaican patois and sometimes both.

Bloom writes children’s poetry and picture books and has also worked as an editor and lyricist. She often writes about family and explores elements of Jamaican or wider Caribbean culture. Bloom believes in the link between poetry and music and was raised in an environment with a strong oral tradition – storytelling, songs and reciting poems. Bloom is a skilled performer of poetry, and regularly reads at festivals and in schools both in the UK and internationally. In 2008 she published her second novel The Tribe and was awarded an MBE for services to poetry. Her most recent collection of children’s poetry, Stars With Flaming Tails, was published in 2021 by Otter-Barry Books.