In August 2014, I was living and working as a teacher in Italy. After work one day I noticed a particularly touching poem called Dear Teacher by Emma Robinson, who writes the funny blog, Motherhood for slackers. It was a poem written from the perspective of a parent with a young child who is just starting school. I was so moved by the heart-felt poem that I felt the need to write a response poem from the perspective of a teacher, to soothe the parents’ fears and anxieties at this tricky time.
So I speedily wrote Dear Parent and posted it as a response on Emma Robinson’s site. The poems combined reached over 10,000 views and we were both amazed! Better still, parenting sites such as Families, My Kids Time and Netmums reposted our poems and they reached a much larger audience.
I remember that one day, I got a phone call from my friend who had just moved to Dubai for a teaching role. She said, “Guess which poem is on our school’s noticeboard to show the parents of the new starters!” The buzz was unbelievable. I was so honoured that people from around the world had taken an interest in my writing.
Then I had an idea…
(To be continued)
Children's Author 