Poetry and Empathy
Poetry is one of the most powerful and natural pathways for children to enhance their understanding and develop their powers of empathy.
When a child encounters a poem, they step into a space where non-everyday thoughts and feelings intermingle. Unlike a textbook or a lecture, a poem does not tell them what to think. It offers instead images and sensations that invite reflection.
A poem might whisper like the voice of an ancient pebble, or pound in their hearts like a powerful night sky. And in that quiet moment, children can begin to feel not just their own deep-down selves but things beyond themselves. They can imagine and share the feelings of others.
Nurturing Empathy
Poetry nurtures empathy because it asks us to listen deeply. Just as empathy is a kind of listening – listening to someone else’s story or joy or sorrow – so too does a poem ask us to pause and listen.
A poem is a pocket-sized friend who never interrupts, never judges, but simply affirms: I feel that too. When children experience this in poetry, it resonates deep down and empowers them to offer that same empathy to others.
Creating Empathy Spaces
In I Hear the Trees I was eager to create a listening and empathetic universe where nature speaks in a vast poetic playground. From worms writing letters to sweet potatoes and roses writing to the wind, from the wild of the full moon to talking fungi and from frightened tiny birds listening to pre-historic dinosaurs, all manner of creatures, plants and things listen, share and delight in each other’s stories.
And it is this listening and sharing that holds us all together.
In the following poem, Powerful as Night Sky, I have asked empathy to speak in its own words.
POWERFUL AS NIGHT SKY
an empathy poem-blog
by Zaro Weil
it is not a big event
not a speech to be read out loud or
a grade on a report or
even something to text . . .
empathy is much older
quieter
something like
the voice of an ancient pebble
the silence of a powerful night sky
the soft roll of ocean waves kindly
offering their shells
each day
each night
for empathy
echoes a thousand heartbeats
carries wisdom awareness friendship
holds our world together
empathy in a poem is
a pocket-sized friend
who never interrupts
listens with all its heart
says yes I think that too
I feel that too . . .
doesn’t judge
empathy grows when a child
can imagine through poetry
how it feels
being a raindrop
a shy hedgehog
a river in danger with poisons
amazon trees crying for help
how it feels
to be someone with no one to sit next to
to share a smile with a stranger
a poem does not preach
it offers
it opens
invites
reflects with vivid picture words
how small things matter
how nothing is more important than
that sunbeam
that person without a voice
that endangered polar bear or honey bee
and with these things in mind
with these feelings
a caring mood grows ripens
as the child finds its own voice
through poetry
through rhyme repetition
through the joy of words sounding
oh so good together
and inside that poem
the child finds its
own thoughts
own feelings
own breath
and inside that small breath
empathy lives
quiet deep
powerful as night sky
holding us all together
I Hear the Trees by Zaro Weil, illustrated by Junli Song (£14.99, Hachette Children’s Books) is available now.
Thank you to Zaro for gifting us with a special poem for our blog! Zaro’s latest poetry book I Hear the Trees is available via Amazon or Bookshop.
I Hear the Trees was selected as a BooksForTopics Book of the Month in August and our review panel described it as a “wonderful collection of poems by Zaro Weil, which again immerses the reader in the splendours and mysteries of Mother Earth, presenting a wide range of poems, from the sensory joys of nature to the deepest emotions, expressed in a variety of poetic styles and forms, offering something for everyone.“. Read our full review here.
Readers may also be interested in the following booklists:
- Primary Poetry
- Poetry for Upper KS2
- The CLiPPA (CLPE Poetry Award) shortlist
- Read for Empathy Books
- Verse novels
- Rhyming Stories
- Books about Plants and Trees
- New children’s books
Browse our curriculum topic booklists for more.
Where next?
> Visit our Reading for Pleasure Hub
> Browse our Topic Booklists
> View our printable year group booklists.
> See our Books of the Month.