The shortlist for the CLiPPA (CLPE Poetry Award) has been announced. Each year, the CLiPPA highlights the year’s outstanding new poetry collections for children, with a particular ear for those that are best to speak and perform aloud.
JonArno Lawson explains how the book came about, and the poetic process that created it.
Guest Blog: JonArno Lawson
Author of Wise Up! Wise Down!
A Conversation in Poems
A Meeting of Poets
It was at the CLPE CLiPPA awards back in 2009 that I first got to know John Agard. Without that meeting, our book Wise Up! Wise Down! would never have come to be. Back then our books were in competition with each other (his book, The Young Inferno, won. Mine lost!) so being nominated for a book we created together this time around is not just coming full circle, but coming full circle while spiralling upward (for me anyway – I can’t speak for John. Maybe this feels like a downward spiral to him).
As we got to know each other’s work better, we noticed that quite a few of our poems showed signs of similar mental (or emotional? It’s all the same – or is it?) preoccupations. It was John who suggested that collecting these poems of ours together might make for an interesting book, and we began writing Wise Up! Wise Down!.
The Process of Collaboration
Covid slowed us down. Or maybe it sped us up. It’s hard to know – either way, it took us a few years, and we did it all by email, along with a few phone calls.
It was a very interesting process for me. I nearly always just write from my own head, never with anyone else. But I didn’t mind taking direction from John, and I didn’t mind when sometimes he’d even tell me what he thought the first line should be. Or what lines I should take out. He’s a real master. A brilliant poet. So is his wife, Grace Nichols. And you should see their daughter, Kalera, dance! They’re a very talented family.
Working on a joint project, you have to feel safe with your collaborator. That’s really important. I knew that any suggestions John had or criticisms he made, he made because he wanted the poems to come alive on the page. He’s in love with language – you can see it in everything he writes, and also in his incomparable live performances, if you’re lucky enough to see him perform live.
Under the Spell of Language
My own interest in poetry, I’m sure, came about in the same way it does for most people, through listening to song lyrics. Lullabies, folk songs, commercial jingles, carols, film and television soundtracks. My earliest memories of being fascinated by rhymes came from listening to the songs of West Side Story, as well as Tom Lehrer’s songs, as well as the theme song for the Spiderman TV cartoon: “Is he strong? Listen bud/he’s got radioactive blood”. What a great line! Followed by “Can he swing, from a thread? Take a look, overhead.” The question and answer format works perfectly. This was written by the great (and prolific) lyricist Paul Francis Webster.
It was this sort of thing that made me fall under the spell of language too.
Opening Up The Conversation
It’s very exciting, having our book nominated for the CLiPPA award. It’s a huge honour.
I’m very much looking forward to seeing how the shadowing groups respond to the poems in the book.
It’s as if others are now joining in the conversation John and I were having.
Wise Up! Wise Down! is published by Walker Books.
The winner of this year’s CLiPPA will be announced live onstage at the National Theatre on London’s Southbank, Friday 20 June. The event will feature live poet readings from each shortlisted collection and the winning Shadowing performances too. Read about the 2025 CliPPA shortlist here.
Readers might also enjoy the following booklists:
- Primary Poetry
- Poetry for Upper KS2
- Verse Novels for Children
- Rhyming Stories
- CLiPPA Shortlist
- Children’s Books Awards
Where next?
> Visit our Reading for Pleasure Hub
> Browse our Topic Booklists
> View our printable year group booklists.
> See our Books of the Month.