Mr Shadow’s Shoes

Add to My Folder

By Paul Cookson — Poet

This filmed whole-school performance is the first in a three-part Performance Poetry Workshop by our Poet-in-residence, Paul Cookson, featuring his poem ‘Mr Shadow’s Shoes’. The audience ranged from four right through to 11, so the films can be used with any age group, but the subsequent workshops are differentiated by age.

Poet’s notes

When I was in a staffroom after a school visit where I had performed poems like ‘Mister Moore’, the staff started talking about teachers they used to have. One said that her old teacher sometimes got really, really mad. When he got really, really mad he shouted. If he shouted really, really loudly his false teeth would shoot out. I loved that cartoon image of the teeth shooting across the room and children ducking. The image stayed with me, and a couple of years later I wrote a poem about ‘Mister Foster’s Flying Teeth’.

Previous learning

Children should have experience of: interpreting texts by reading aloud with variety in pace, emphasis, intonation; listening to video and expressing views about how a poem is presented and why they like a performance; finding/using new and interesting words and phrases.