Children can write poetry and then, unless they're poets, they

Hear now the strange yet piercing words of Dennis Potter, who said: “Children can write poetry and then, unless they’re poets, they stop when they reach puberty.” This is no mere jest, but a truth about the soul’s journey from innocence to burden. In childhood, the world is wondrous and unguarded, and words spring like fresh water from a mountain stream. The child, unafraid of judgment, speaks in images, sees the invisible, and makes the ordinary shine with mystery. But when puberty comes, when self-consciousness binds the spirit, that stream is often dammed. Only the true poet, who refuses to surrender wonder, continues the song into adulthood.

The ancients knew this power of the childlike vision. For what is poetry but the ability to see the world anew? Plato spoke of poets as possessed by divine madness, as those who glimpse the eternal in the common. Children share in that same gift—every flower is a miracle, every shadow a myth, every question a doorway to mystery. Yet as years press upon them, the world teaches them to be “serious,” to abandon play, to mistrust imagination. Thus, as Potter laments, the natural poetry of youth withers in most, leaving silence where once there was song.

Consider the story of William Blake, who as a boy saw visions of angels in trees and fields of glowing spirits. He was mocked, scolded, told to grow out of his “nonsense.” But he refused. He carried his childhood vision into manhood, writing songs of innocence and experience that still burn with a fiery otherworld. Blake was one who proved Potter’s words: he did not abandon the poetic sight at puberty. Instead, he fought to keep it alive, even when the world declared it folly. His life teaches us that the poet is not one who never grows old, but one who guards the child’s vision against the corrosion of doubt.

But think too of the countless children whose verses never survive the passage into adulthood. How many have written little songs, small poems, whispers of beauty on schoolroom paper, only to forget that gift in the years of conformity? This is the tragedy Potter points to: the death of spontaneous creation. When a child becomes aware of ridicule, of failure, of the harshness of judgment, the pen is laid aside. The inner voice is silenced not because it has no power, but because courage falters.

What, then, is the lesson for us who live now? It is to cherish the child’s poetry within us. Even if we are not poets by craft, we must not let our lives lose all imagination. We must remember that language is not only for commerce or command but also for beauty. The way we speak to one another, the way we describe our days, can either kill or kindle the spark of wonder. The true calling is not to preserve childishness, but to preserve the child’s openness to mystery.

Practically, we must train ourselves to listen again with the ears of children. Keep a journal where no judgment enters, where you may write freely as a child does. Read aloud the poems of the greats, and let their words awaken your sleeping imagination. Watch the small details of your day—the play of light on a wall, the cry of a bird at dusk—and do not dismiss them. Write of them, even if clumsily. Share them with those you trust. In this way, you reclaim the stream of poetry that once flowed so naturally.

Thus remember the wisdom of Potter: children can write poetry, but only poets keep writing after they grow. Yet within you lies the choice: to let silence swallow wonder, or to nourish it with attention and courage. Do not think you must be a “poet” by profession; rather, be a guardian of your own imagination. For the world is in need of souls who still see, still sing, still speak with the bright eyes of children. And if you do, your life itself will become a poem—one that does not end when childhood does, but continues into eternity.