Klaus Thestrup

Kategori: Poems in english

  • Time is a trickster – spoken words at a garden party

    Time is a trickster – spoken words at a garden party

    Here we are, Wes Shumar and I performing a poem in english about life and time and change. I wrote the text but Wes commented and suggested. I read the words and Wes let the guitar gently whisper to a dear friend of ours. She said yes to me publishing the poem here on my webpage. Enjoy!


    TIME IS A TRICKSTER

    Age is a number, life is to be ready for the next challenge
    Feeling alive in the sun, among friends, playing once again
    Grandchildren and grand thoughts intertwining

    A guitar whispers about the twilight between love and loss
    A woman enters the stage and shows herself once again
    Watch her hands slowly open and close ready for the next fight

    You are a ballet dancer, when it comes to crossing a river
    It seems to be part of your tough and yet sensitive spine
    Earned though a lifetime of being and becoming

    You leave the old map and the directions noted there
    The new map is ready to be drawn and done by yourself
    Nothing matters more than your next decision

    Time is a trickster, suddenly days turn into years
    A house turns into a home, words turn into a language
    But you turn into what you always were, a strong woman
  • The Transformers – a poem on digital media, children and pedagogy

    The Transformers – a poem on digital media, children and pedagogy

    This is a poem on how children and technology can be framed and understood in a pedagogical setting like a kindergarten, a pre-school or a afterschool club. The essence here is to give the children and the staff the possibility to become transformers. What that might be, you can read below.

    it is in English, as I was writing it at the BIN-norden conference i Stockholm in May 25. The conference was about among other things about childrens culture in a pedagogical setting. Enjoy.

    And just to mention it: The second line in the poem is actually part of the first line. This software just cant show such loooong lines of text – in one line.


    The transformers

    You can think children as narrators, explorers, searchers & decision makers
    It is nothing new, it is part of everyday life in a kindergarten

    Give them the possibility to experiment and find their own use
    For digital media, technologies and narratives

    Ask fundamental questions together with the children
    Be a We, a group of human beings

    What do we want to tell?
    What do we want to know more about and be able to?
    Who do we want to talk to and where?

    And of course, who do we not want to talk to 
    And where do we not want to be
     
    What do we want to use this technology for?
    Because we can change any use together to another use
    Our playground is an open laboratory

    We are the ones who can transform anything through play
    We are the ones who can leave any technology any time

    We are the ones, who are the center of the world
    It is what we do together that matters
    We are the ones who travel online to meet the unknown

    We are always body, community and play
    We can mix robots, tablets, sand and space

    Images can become shaped clay that can become new play
    Play can become shaped clay that can become new images
    Just use AI, a camera and a circular, playful proces

    We are an experimenting community that never finishes
    One must just start thinking and acting like that

    If you want to know more about BIN Norden, you have got several options: BIN-Norden and BIN Norden – børnekultur i Norden

  • Our Playground – Reading at BIN Norden in Stockholm

    Our Playground – Reading at BIN Norden in Stockholm

    There I was on the 08.05.25 standing in front of all the participants at the BIN-Norden conference in Stockholm reading this poem celebrating us as educators, researchers and practitioners in the field of children´s culture. It is in English as the conference language were in English. The drawing is mine and has to do with being global as well as Nordic. You get the poem both as a reading and in writing. Enjoy!


    Our Playground

    We know a lot in this vibrating everlasting space
    About being in deep processes with children
    Playing together in a modest everyday present

    We are the experts in looking at and joining in
    At the very same time inside this phenomenon play
    Working and walking through a playful pedagogy

    Here we are suggesting ways to become humans
    Using tools and materials to understand and live life
    Doing experiments to be a gentle part of a wounded world

    Maybe we are the ones, who know the most on culture
    On art unfolded in processes, on digital technologies
    As a vivid part of the analogue and the global

    At least we dare to be in the unknown and still untold
    Breaking boundaries and creating new expressions
    Making ourselves and children capable of agency

    This is a community of researchers and practitioners
    Basing our results on action and ongoing reflection
    We hold our ground in the playground and talk about it

    Be aware, we have just started a long journey
    It might be us, who can change the future of this planet
    Being sensitive to ourselves, to all and our connections 

    A toast for the Nordic approach, a toast for children
    A toast for Bin Norden, a conference to discuss and act
    A toast for our capacity to play and play again

    If you want to know more about BIN Norden, you have got several options: BIN-Norden and BIN Norden – børnekultur i Norden

  • My Christmas Card – a poem on climate change

    My Christmas Card – a poem on climate change

    Here is a Christmas Card from 29 of december 2019 from all of me to all of you. Long time ago when the maps of Australia were turning orange and red from heat and wildfires. Since then parts of Europe have tried similar and parts of the continent seem to drown in rain. Things are getting worse. Anyway here it is.


    My Christmas Card


    Climate change
    Eats cities, roads, people

    We are alle Australia
    Facing fear and fire

    We run for cover
    But this globe is tipping

    We are almost out of time
    Greed or Green?

    Merry Christmas
    May Mankind Unite