stair poetry

Walking stairwords by Geof Huth

Geof Huth painted some visual poems on the  staircase of his house, made from the private family language and kidspeak. It has several stanzas, the third one on the ceiling over the staircase.

I just love this idea, and I wished we were back in our house in London, where I hated having to climb up and down several sets of stairs all day long. I could have made a simple poem with four stanzas! I would prefer a poem, which is rhythmical, and can be memorized. This reminds me of my childhood, when we used to stay at my grandparents’ house. My grandfather would take me and my brother to bed upstairs, and every night walking up the stairs he would say the same counting, rhyming nonsense poem. I used to love that part, it made climbing up the stairs and having to go to sleep fun.

A staircase poem allows to connect the movement of the body through time and space with the rhythm and music of the words.