Poems for Children

Carole Bromley was shortlisted for the Manchester Writing for Children Award in 2014 and her poem, ‘Goldilocks’ performed at the CLiPPA Awards the following year. 

She has been highly commended three times in the Caterpillar competition and in 2022 was the winner with her poem ‘Pry’vit’. Her children’s poems have appeared in ‘A Poem for every Night of the Year’ (MacMillan), ‘Let in the Stars’ (MMU),‘The Head that Wears a Crown’ (Emma Press), Poems for 8 Year Olds (MacMillan), The Best Ever Book of Funny Poems (MacMillan), A Whale of a Time (Nosy Crow), Space (Royal Observatory, Greenwich), Gods and Monsters (MacMillan) and Heroes and Villains (MacMillan).

Carole also has poems in The Toy, Little Thoughts Press, Paperbound, The Dirigible Balloon, Tyger,Tyger and Paper Lanterns. The poems below are all from her first collection for children, Blast Off! which was published by Smith/Doorstop and illustrated by Cathy Benson. Her new collection, Ghosts and Ginnels, is aimed at children and families visiting York.

– From Blast Off

The Doll in the Museum

A little girl, on tiptoe at the barrier,
points at the makeshift wooden doll
propped on a child’s rocking chair.
Everything happened in this one room:
bedroom, nursery, kitchen, parlour.
Above the sink a witch ball hangs,
on the rag rug a stuffed sheepdog,
glass eyes glinting by the light of the fire.
Once, a shepherd whittled a branch
to make a dolly for his daughter,
carved the eyes, the lopsided smile,
just body and head, no legs, no hair,
no clothes, rope for arms. Doll! Doll!
the little girl tugs her mother’s sleeve...
and a long-ago child comes back to life,
toddles in through that open door
lifts her wooden doll from the chair,
swings her round by frayed rope hands,
clogs ringing on the stone flags
Lavenders blue, dilly dilly, lavenders green
When I am King dilly dilly you shall be Queen.

– From Ghosts and Ginnels

Stanza

Our teacher said a stanza is a room.
I wondered how big and whether 
it had windows and a view
and was it upstairs or down
and could you sleep in it?

We all live in one room, mum, me,
my baby sister and it isn’t ours
and the shower doesn’t work
and mum says the toilet’s iffy
but at least we have a room.

Sometimes I pretend the bed’s a ship
and I’m sailing in it to the moon,
sometimes I sit on the windowsill
and watch the people hurry by
and wonder where they’re going

and if they even know I’m here
in this room that’s really a stanza
and though the view is strange to me
it’s the beginning of a home
with real rhymes and everything.

– Highly commended, Caterpillar Competition, 2025

Tansy Beetles

Between St Peter’s boathouse
and the roar of Clifton Bridge,
a riverbank where tansy grows,
its yellow flowers swaying
on tall, feathery stems. 
Here there should be beetles,
gleaming like emeralds.
The Victorians used their wings
for sequins. Holiday treasure
if you know where to look.
If the river floods too soon
the flowers are washed away
and the beetles with them.
The floods come earlier every year
and soon the beetles won’t be here
for kids like me who come
seeking among the tall stalks
the beetle known as The Jewel of York.

– From Ghosts and Ginnels