Book, chapters, articles, other resources

Book

From Tongue to Text​
The connection between childhood and poetry runs deep. Drawing on Walter Ong's theory of orality and on Iain McGilchrist's work on brain function, this book develops a new theoretical framework for the study of children's poetry. From Tongue to Text argues that the poem is a multimodal form that exists in the borderlands between the world of experience and the world of language and between orality and literacy – places that children themselves inhabit. Engaging with a wide range of poetry from nursery rhymes and Christina Rossetti to Michael Rosen and Carol Ann Duffy, I demonstrate how these 'tactful' works are shaped by the dynamics of orality and textuality.

From Tongue to Text: A New Reading of Children's Poetry was published by Bloomsbury Academic (2017)
From reviews
​In a brief closing section, Pullinger returns to the idea of “tactful reading” to argue that children’s poetry is best understood, not through arm’s-length theories, but through methodologies that are grounded in “commitment, immersion, abandonment, trust” (232). Tactful reading, she suggests, requires three related approaches: poetic reading, in which reading functions as a rightbrained creative act; multimodal reading, in which the text is understood as acoustic, corporeal and visual; and integrated reading, in which the creative act of reading is augmented (but not replaced) by left-brained intellectual analysis (235). This is an ambitious conclusion to an ambitious study. Its success reflects the author’s broad knowledge of contemporary British poetry as well as her willingness to draw from multiple academic perspectives. While the study of children’s literature is flourishing, it remains divided among the disciplines of education, literary criticism, history, and psychology. From Tongue to Text is itself an act of “integrated reading” that crosses disciplinary lines to make a strong case for the value and complexity of children’s poetry.
Excerpt from review in The Lion and The Unicorn, Angela Sorby, 2018
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From the back cover
“This is the first extensive theoretical exploration of that most intractable area of literary studies, poetry for children, and it should be essential reading for everyone in the field of children's literature… it draws on a remarkable range of literary and linguistic theory to produce, a new way of reading and of understanding the genre: 'the idea of a fully engaged sort of criticism.' From Tongue to Text is that rare thing: a book which marks an important step in critical thinking, and which is readable and accessible, and which above all is original”
Peter Hunt, Professor Emeritus in Children's Literature, Cardiff University, UK.

“This book is a rather thrilling call to take poetry for children seriously – that is, not earnestly, but with an appetite to see its fullest implications. Unafraid to engage with theory, the argument is anything but cerebral. Rather, it leads the mind back to the body, to its play and humour and its tactile wrestling with experience. Almost incidentally, it opens up the possibility that this approach illuminates all poetry, for any age, and that children's poetry might be not a marginal art but the key” 
Philip Gross, Professor of Creative Writing, Course leader, MPhil in Writing, University of South Glamorgan

Chapters

Articles and Resources

Most article links are to the journal website.
​If you're interested in something you don't have rights to access, ping me a request and I'll send you a copy.

Articles

Resources

Drawing on my work both on children's poetry and on the findings from the Poetry & Memory Project, I designed and wrote the resources for the Teaching Space on the new Children's Poetry Archive.
Text and images © Debbie Pullinger 2019