Nursery Rhyme Week Day Five: Build Your Own Mythology

Ted Hughes wrote children's poetry for three decades, and Moon-Whales was probably his best collection. He built an entire mythology out of all the creatures you can find on the moon. There are moon whales that "plough through the moon stuff [...] lifting the moon's skin like a muscle." There's a moon-oak that carries the moon in his feet. There are moon-wings, so you "go you go you go--where or which way you never know." The moon has shadow beggars that fill you up until you're nothing but a skinful of shadows whispering shadow-talk." There are even moon-dog daisies that race around the moon in packs.

Hughes' Moon has its own rules. There is "no wind on the moon at all yet things get blown about. In utter, utter stillness your candle shivers out." There are heads that float around without bodies and bassoons that make no sound.

This sort of mythology should be familiar to you. Just read Alice in Wonderland, where eating makes you big, drinking makes you small, and tears create floods that wash you through keyholes.

Why does this matter? Well, in the words of W.H. Auden, 'There are good books which are only for adults. There are no good books which are only for children.' Even Hughes admitted that he hoped adults would be reading Moon Whales over their children's shoulders. The best children's stories have so much depth you could use them as self-help books, and they usually achieve that without being preachy.

Writing for children will turn you into a better adults' writer, so today's exercise is to write a story or poem that has its own mythology. Go crazy. It's good for you.

Singing on the Moon

Ted Hughes

Singing on the moon seems precarious.

Hum the slightest air

And some moon-monster sails up and perches to stare.

These monsters are moonily various.

If you sing in your bath

Risks are one of these monster entities

Will come crash through the wall and with dusty eyes

Perch on the taps to stare, as if in wrath.

The tenor who practices on a volcano side

Sees eyes rising over the crater rim

To fix their incredulity on him—

There is no place on the moon where a singer can hide

And not raise some such being face to face.

But do not be alarmed — their seeming fury

Comes from their passion for music being so fiery.

So if you just sing from your heart, and stay in your place,

At your song’s end the monster will cry out madly

And fling down money, probably far more than you can spend,

And kiss your shoe with his horrific front-end,

Then shudder away with cries of rapture diminishing sadly.