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MY GARDEN
By Josie Whitehead
(Josie Poole then)
In my garden you will see
Flowers, birds and a busy bee;
Fragrant tulips, lilies, roses -
All the things to make some posies.
From my window you will hear
Blackbirds, thrushes, larks so clear;
Gathering moss and twigs and hair -
Making nests of beauty rare.
My garden gives me such great pleasure,
But alas it gives me little leisure:
Weeding, watering and cutting the lawn,
One needs to rise before the dawn.
Copyright on all my poems
This poem was written by me when I was 11 years of age. I was an 11 plus failure and at a secondary modern school. We weren't taught anything about poetry, although I loved reading it, and certainly not taught about metre. I wrote this poem for our school magazine, and it remained in my mother's drawer where we found it when she died. I look at this lovely little poem with its perfect tetrameter and description of my little garden and I am quite surprised at it and yet - no-one encouraged me to write any further poetry and so from then until I was about 65 years of age, any talent I had remained undetected. It was children in my local primary school, whom I visited as a volunteer visitor, who encouraged me to write, and they obviously thought I had talent because they asked for a new poem each week and year by year. Thank you children for what you did. It has been published in a book. Josie