The Children’s Poetry Archive - Listen to the world’s best children’s poetry read out loud

Written By Benne van der Velde

Click on the image to go to the website of this amazing initiative!

Inspiring Young Learners

“Poetry doesn't just live in books - it lives in the sounds that words make. When we read poems out loud we breathe life into them and we can picture them in our imagination. The Children’s Poetry Archive is a place where you can listen to poems read out loud. We have poems read by the poets who wrote them as well as poems which other people have recorded for us. We think everyone has a favourite poem, it’s just that they haven’t heard it out loud yet. We hope you find your favourite here.

Poetry was spoken out loud a long time before people started to write it down but we didn’t have any way to make recordings of it. This is why we can’t listen to Shakespeare or Wordsworth now, however much we might like to. The Children’s Poetry Archive has promised to record as many poets and poems as we can and to put those recordings here so you can explore them.”

“Our archives have lots of poetry for you to explore and discover. You can get started by looking for your favourite poem using the search bar below, or by having a look through our list of poets, collections and interviews.” Click on the image to start exploring!

Teach the world's best poetry

“Poetry is best enjoyed and taught by hearing it out loud and now that so many children are learning from home, we’ve brought together some resources to help you inspire your class about the importance of poetry and the fun to be had in exploring it.

We gathered resources here to help you teach poetry. There are activities for all key stages, built around Poetry Archive recordings and offering lively, engaging ways of working with poetry.

We've also included links to some of our favourite organisations who also provide support for teaching poetry so you should find resources to answer all your questions.”

Click on the image to go to the teaching page!

Support the Archive!

“Poetry read in the unique voice of the author is unlike anything else. Please share your love of poetry and help us continue to grow our collections and keeping them safe for the future. From a £1 donation to an annual membership, you can help us record more poets and put poetry into more schools for everyone to learn from and enjoy. We don't get public funding support, and we can only continue with your help. By becoming a member or making a donation, you are keeping the Archive's poetry available and shared online. Every £1 is valuable to us, so however you can help us, thank you. Your support will speak  volumes!”

Click on the image to dig a little and support! Cheers :)

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Benne van der Velde

After thoroughly enjoying the Dutch slam poetry scene in the early and mid 2000s (with wins in 7 cities and eventually a place in the Nationals of 2012) and performances at the Lowlands-, Uitmarkt- and Parade festivals a/o, Benne successfully made the transition from the stage to paper by signing his first publishing deal in 2005. Since then 4 publishing houses (kleine Uil, Douane, Nadorst and Stanza) released volumes of his poetry. For a 5th (Passage) he co-edited an anthology of satirical/pamphlet poetry with fellow poets Daniel Dee and Alexis de Roode.

As a member of the artist movement ‘Het Ongeboren Idee’ he helped to organize (and was part of/presented) cultural lo-fi festivals, exhibitions, making a movie, monthly poetry stages in his hometown of Vlaardingen (Poezie in De Steeg), Rotterdam (De Poetsclub) and Nijmegen (Late Letteren Live) + a talent show for bands.

In 2002 and 2003 he studied ‘writing for performance’ at the vocational university of the Arts in the city of Utrecht (HKU) and as a result saw 3 of his theater plays make it to a stage. Writer Hiekelien van den Herik and he co-wrote a knight spectacle play complete with real choreographed sword fights, men in heavy plate armor and more great stuff like that. Theater-/enactment group Ridderspoor performed said play in 2004 and 2005 at Het Archeon, during De Kasteeldagen and at an Elfia-fantasy fair. He also gave numerous poetry and rap workshops at schools and other institutions. There were a lot of collabs too, for example voice-over work for a Rock Opera, a monumental art project for which he partnered up with the artist Erwin Adema and thrice alongside the R.J.S.O (The Rotterdam Youth Symphony Orchestra).

Benne has been an editor for several literary magazines (Krakatau, Renaissance and Op Ruwe Planken), at one time he and his wife owned a secondhand bookstore, he’s been the official poet laureate for his hometown of Vlaardingen and released his first and only Dutch rap-EP in 2011. In 2012 he rapped his way into the finals of Art Rocks. An EP with songs in English followed in 2021. A year later he started translating Dutch musical and lyrical classics from Dutch into English, and vice versa. Some of his short sci-fi and fantasy stories have found their way to medium related websites, magazines and anthology’s.

According to the poet himself rewriting his own poetry, lyrics and prose in English somehow feels like the next logical step in his career, a way to open up to the world at large. Which is both exhilarating and terrifying. So far several of these translations have been published in Bebarbar, Hare’s paw, Festivalforpoetry, Punt Volat, The Dewdrop, The Dillydoun Review and Months to Years a/o.

In everyday (some claim real) life he worked as an industrial tank cleaner, in pest control, on a garbage truck, driving a forklift, in a chemical waste facility, on a Ferry and 10 years as a bartender in a cannabis bar. At the time of writing this resume he can be found at home or in the hospital battling throat cancer. He’s been off the Herb since 2008, has a wife, 2 dogs, mild anxiety issues and likes to read every sci-fi and fantasy classic he can find.

www.linkedin.com/in/benne-van-der-velde-8b17a7296

The poet/lyricist and author Rob Chrispijn: ‘Benne writes sentences that stick; clean, dark and intense. This way a poem lasts!’

The poet Philip Hoorne on the website Poetry rapport: ‘There’s a genius hiding in Benne van der Velde, those are the Good Tidings of today. Amen.’

https://www.doubledutchmagazine.com
Next

Going Dutchtube!, nr. 3 (Nivelan reads 5 Dutch poems + their translations)