Happiness Poetry

You can look for poems by poets who are made happy by the same things as you to see how they have expressed themselves.

“maggie and milly and molly and may” by E.E. Cummings about being on the beach.

“Cats sleep, anywhere” by Eleanor Farjeon

You could write a poem about happiness from the point of view of a cat or your favourite animal.

“Daffodils” by William Wordsworth

Happiness Discussion

What is happiness?

Is it a noun, an object or a person or a place?

Is it a feeling?

Is it a smell?

Is it a taste?

Is it rare or something you do every day?

Can you measure happiness?

What does happiness sound like?

Is happiness the opposite of unhappiness?

Do we know when we are happy?

Does it make you happy when you help other people?

Does it make you happy seeing other people being happy?

Can you be in prison/on a battlefield/in Lockdown/grieving a death and be happy?

(Death - “Maureen Durcan” by Paul Durcan)

(Battlefield - “Everyone Sang” by Siegfried Sassoon)

Naomi Shihab Nye has written a brilliant poem about the coming and going of happiness called “So Much Happiness.”

Blake Morrison wrote a poem and simply called it “Happiness.”

Happiness Guessing Game

You can learn about someone’s character by what makes them happy.

Which famous characters in poems are made happy by the following things?

butter on his bread -

The King in “The King’s Breakfast”; by A. A. Milne

pea-green boat, honey, guitar, stars, singing, mince, quince, dancing -

The Owl and the Pussy-cat in “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat” by Edward Lear

Painting in Words

Sometimes when artists are happy, they paint a picture instead of writing a poem. Plato said,

“Painting is silent poetry, and painting is poetry that speaks.”

Do you have a favourite painting that makes you happy? Could you write a poem about it?

I love Picasso’s ‘Child with a Dove’ and Matisse’s giant collage ‘The Snail’.

I wrote a poem about a pot in the Sainsbury Centre which brings out my inner child.

Refuge

The theme of National Poetry Day was Refuge this year.

Do you have a safe place where you feel happy, such as your bedroom or a secret den?

Shape poems

You could write a poem in the shape of what makes you happy such as a butterfly or a house or an article of clothing or a piece of technology or....

Sonnet

Or you could choose a more complicated from such as a sonnet which has 14 lines.

My favourite is Sonnet 29, “When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes” by William Shakespeare. He is feeling miserable until he thinks of the person he loves and then he cheers up. Love makes him happy.

Favourite poem

Choose your favourite poem by someone else about happiness.

Analyse it: the metaphors, similes, onomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance, consonance, rhymes, metre, rhythm, form.

What does it look like on the page?

What does it sound like when you read it out loud?

Mine is “You’re” by Sylvia Plath. The unborn baby in her tummy is making her happy.

NOW IT’S YOUR TURN!

Happiness List

Write down ten things that make you happy.

Pick one and write about it in any form you like using all the five senses of smell, taste, touch, sight and sound!

Poetry anthologies full of useful poems:

DANCING by the LIGHT of the MOON by Gyles Brandreth (Penguin, 2021)

The Poetry Pharmacy by William Sieghart (Penguin Random House Books, 2017)

The Poetry Pharmacy Forever by William Sieghart (Penguin Random House Books, 2023)

Everyone Sang by William Sieghart (Walker Books, 2021)

Individual poets

“Happiness” by Blake Morrison in Shingle Street (Chatto and Windus, 2015)

Sonnet XXVIIII “When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes” by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Penguin, 1986)

“You’re” by Sylvia Plath in Ariel ( 1965)

Exemplar material:

My Alphabet of Happiness

Apple, art

Beach, blackberries, birthdays, brothers, birds

Cats

Daughter

Elephants

Family

Grandparents

Holidays, home

Ice skating

Justice

Kayaking

Laughter, love

Mum, magic, moon

Niceness

Openness

Pen and paper

Questions

Reading, raspberries, room with a view, a room to write in

Sea, swimming, snow

Travel

Understanding

Van

Whales, world music

Xxx

You

Zzzz

Vanessa Raison