The kenning is an Anglo-Saxon literary device, very common in Anglo-Saxon poetry, in which a new noun or noun phrase is coined to replace a more familiar noun. Examples from Anglo-Saxon poetry including calling the sea the whaleroad, a sword a battlefriend, the body a bonehouse. Essentially, they are metaphorical circumlocutions, describing a well-known noun in a new way which gives information about its qualities and characteristics. In contemporary poetry and in developing understanding of poetry with young writers the kenning forces displacement of the familiar and invites deeper thinking about how to describe and encapsulate the ordinary in an extraordinary way.
Poetry writing with kennings: introduce writers to the form of the kenning and its Anglo-Saxon origin; then play around with the concept by asking writers in pairs to generate as many kennings as they can for some common, everyday objects (eg a comb; a pen; a clock). Often the first ones generated will be the most obvious, but the later ones are more inventive. Notice that many kennings end with -er (lock teaser; word spinner; time manager) but they do not have to. Then choose a theme or topic for some kenning poetry: some that work well are animals (children writing about their own pets is a good one), or a theme which looks at objects in a particular place (eg objects in a school). One year instead of objects, we listed collectively people associated with education, (teacher; governor; parent; caretaker; Ofsted inspector; Chris Woodhead!) and each person wrote a kenning about one of the people on the list.
Writers then generate as long a list of kennings as possible about their chosen topic, and then selecting the most communicative ones, shape a kenning poem of their own.
-
21 lines, 5 comments, on Jun 14 12:17 AM 2007
-
Driven Roots Rive
Author: Ron Wiseman
-
by Lyndon 44 lines, 10 comments, on Feb 20 8:35 AM. In Anglo-saxon style, Roots, Life, Ruins, Community, Kennings, Free Verse, History
Adding your comment: