We ask Attie Lime, author of ‘Poems on Toast’ – where do poems come from?

Over to Attie…

Attie Lime

Poems on Toast is my third collection of poems for children. In the book’s introduction I mention that it probably has the most ‘me’ in it of all my books so far.

I’m often asked, at events and on school visits, where I get my ideas for poems. The answer is everywhere; I sometimes liken a poet to a detective, keeping a keen eye out for ideas or little glimmers of everyday magic that others may have missed!

I’m also greatly inspired by my children, especially my youngest, who has been kind enough to mature at the same rate as my writing – he was in Key Stage One when I was writing my younger collection, and is now the target age for Poems on Toast. The relationship between him and his older brothers often crops up in my writing too.

Reading through my fresh new copy of Poems on Toast, I can now see the true influence of my family in the poems. I don’t tend to plan too much when I write; I write what comes to mind at that particular time. I suspect if I had dated every poem in the book and added a ‘What happened today’ diary entry, patterns would emerge!

A ‘younger sibling’ theme runs through Poems on Toast. It was never planned; it just crept in and hung around (as younger siblings do). The poems Brother Fish, Sister Storm, Handfuls of Summer, Not Quite and Promp all feature little brothers or sisters directly, while the following poems such as The Picture, Wembley, Overnight, The Balloon, Did You Do It?, Level Playing Field and Swing were inspired in some way by ‘The Family Lime’ and things we’ve done, seen or experienced together.

Handfuls of Summer

We’re straight
to the water
eyes down
hunting
for the flattest
smoothest ones
skimmers
skippers
leapers
palming butter-soft ones
passing lumpy bumpy ones
to our little brother
and on THREE!
we spin them from fingers
they skip and they skip and they skip and
we keep counting
long after
the last one
sinks. 

Handfuls of Summer is about the stone-skimming we do as a family every summer holiday. We have favourite beaches and bays where we do it, we know the best places to find the smooth, flat stones and we have family stories about it (I don’t recommend having a large stone accidentally skimmed into the back of your knee!). We’ve watched ‘the little brother’ improve year on year to become a very good skimmer (at age 9).

When I write, I try to cast my mind back and think about what I was like as a child, but I realise that writing in detail about ‘back then’ may not be relevant to today’s children. Many of my school memories and references would mean nothing to a nine-year-old in 2026. The feelings, however, may be more easily recognised.

The poem Confidence is pure me. I spent so many school lessons sitting brimming with answers but rarely having the nerve to put up my hand: ‘She is coiled inside me/Tight-sprung, silent’. I remember that feeling so well: I know the answer, but...I might actually be wrong. If I put my hand up they’ll all look at me. The teacher might put me on the spot and ask a follow-up question that I don’t know. I’m just too nervous. And so on. Until the teacher asked someone else, who said exactly what was in my head...and I was right! I should have put my hand up! Now they think I didn’t know! Why am I like this?

I clearly remember the back-to-school feelings in the poem Let’s Get You Sorted. Not just starting high school, but those tummy rumbles and flutters every year towards the end of August that accompanied a trip to town for new shoes and stationery. And that feeling that, however hard they try, parents often just don’t get it. They don’t UNDERSTAND! I try to channel that feeling as I parent my three boys; it helps me to stop and really listen to them.

The grown-up me is also reflected in several poems in the collection. I enjoy the blurring of poetry lines; why is it only a ‘children’s poem’? (In fact, there’s a poem included which was first published in a poetry webzine for adults). I’m Okay wasn’t based on my first time in hospital, but it was born from a genuine orange-jelly-in-hospital experience. Quiet is a poem that mirrors my feelings at least once a week. With five of us in the house there are often several conversations going on at once, music coming from a speaker, the washer and oven beeping, one of the kids strumming a guitar (or banging a makeshift drumkit) and the cat miaowing to be out. Sometimes ‘…I need/quiet/and nothing more’.

I’ve indulged myself by including a good handful of poems about writing and poetry in Poems on Toast. Let’s call it spreading the joy! I’m excited to share the poem simply called Poetry in a school for the first time to see if they agree with my take on it. It’s about how I feel when I perform in schools (fizzing!) and it sums up the usual response from staff and children during and after a visit. It’s about bringing poetry to life; taking it off the page and into the air – specifically by the actual poet. It’s probably a good poem to end on, as it’s what this collection is all about.

Poetry

I like poetry.
I like it when there's a hidden word
on the page,
when a bit of it is upside down,
and when the words chime
at the ends of the lines.
But when I really like it –
really really like it
is when it's out in the air
when it's rolled off someone's tongue
when it's read with someone's hands as well as their mouth
when it's even coming out of their eyes
and they're smiling with the love of those words, too,
because they're the poet
and they're in OUR school
and we can all see them fizzing,
really fizzing
with poetry.

Find out more about Attie Lime and her new collection Poems on Toast.