Objectives: concision, precision, best words in best order, concrete images, the idea of the line, writing in another voice, writing about place, perspective.

This exercise leads towards poetry and onwards to several options. Usually I decide in advance which options I'll offer pupils. Sometimes, if they are up for it, I'll offer them choices. As a poet and travel writer I use the 'postcards' as a way into both disciplines, but here it moves students to write poems about important places, special people and strong feelings.

Talk about how good writing packs a lot into a small space. To paraphrase Alun Lewis's letter home from the war - I'm sorry this is such a long letter; if I'd had more time I'd have written a short one. Imagine a destination near or far from home (somewhere you've liked or hated OR an imaginary place). Imagine the picture postcard you'd send from there if you could; get a clear image of the picture in your mind; or pictures: it may be a postcard with several views. Make short descriptive notes. Imagine yourself in that place.

Now imagine/remember how you feel there; feelings about where you are or about what you've left behind. Now decide on the person to whom you'd most like to send the postcard (mum, granddad, sister, boyfriend, girlfriend, best friend, worst enemy OR imaginary person). Turn the 'postcard' over. Choose words carefully, to say just what you want to say to them, and write it.

Example by a 14-year-old: 

Dear dad, 
It's ten o'clock. I'm in bed. Outside is the 
sea, the bright lights, the clubs, the smell of 
excitement. I can't go out because you're in 
the room next door. Wish you weren't here. 
Love, Gemma

As the postcards are read out, pick out good lines/phrases and write them on the board. Discuss why they are good and why they might be lines in a poem. Show how, once you've discovered that one good line, you can work backwards and forwards from it to make a poem.

Now, imagine that the person who got your postcard writes a poem back to you (it may be a reply, or it may be the thing they really want to say to you). So Gemma writes a poem to herself in her dad's voice; Wayne writes a poem in his girlfriend's voice....

Now write your own poem about that place. Use your notes about the postcard view/s and imagine/remember how similar or different the place is to the postcard. What doesn't the postcard show? The poem should be full of your feelings about the place but not state them. Your choice of words - the exact noun, the exact verb, and then perhaps the right adjective and adverb - should reveal them. Don't write 'I'm bored by the beach', but try something like: 'Waves, with nothing better to do, whack the sand all day'.

Now, imagine you're sitting in that place. From 'there', write a poem about home. OR about (not to) your mum, boyfriend, worst enemy...

© Paul Hyland 

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