Wordplay

Presented at the PETAA Annual National Leading with Literacy Conference in 2023 by Maxine Beneba-Clarke

What happens if you stretch personification to the point of absurdity? What is the grossest onomatopoeic word you can come up with? Who can use the most metaphors or idioms in the course of a school day? If you wrote down every found poem you encountered in a week, how many would you end up with? How much could you change your school report by turning it into ‘black out poetry’?! What are the ten top tips for tongue twisters that tongue trip?

In this keynote, poet and author Maxine Beneba Clarke shares some of the tricks she’s trialled on author visits to primary classrooms – what’s failed, what’s flourished, and what’s led to fabulous discoveries – all in the name of making words fun.