Traveling poet and musician Ken Waldman knows how to get a crowd of third graders riled up. After all, he’s “very, very tricky.”

Waldman brought several stringed instruments and his very own (literal) bag of tricks to Center School on Thursday afternoon to give kids a lesson in poetry and music.

A resident of Alaska, Waldman travels the country performing for kids and adults.

He said it all started when he was a professor in Nome, Alaska. Waldman conducted most of his classes over the phone due to the lack of roads in the area. When he flew to visit his students in their remote villages, Waldman would also offer to play his fiddle and teach a poetry lesson with grade school kids.

“I could talk on stage and had rapport with adults and with kids,” he said.

Since the mid-90s he’s done just that, traveling north, south, east, and west to hold workshops, performances, and short-term residencies. Additonally, Waldman has written poetry books and recorded CDs for kids and adults.

At schools, he usually brings a poem written specifically for the town or school. He also puts his name and other information about himself on a board to see if kids will notice.

“I like to just start in the middle of things,” said Waldman. “I like not only teaching but helping them pay attention.”

Every school performance is different, with a mix of poetry, storytelling, and traditional music. At Center School, Waldman pulled out a large duffel bag and asked kids to guess what was inside. He warned them first: “I’m also very, very tricky.”

As he pulled bag, from bag, from bag, from bag, the students got more excited, until dozens of bags later, Waldman pulled out a sock with a harmonica.

“Part of being a writer is being kind of tricky and having fun,” he said.

Waldman played a few tunes on his mandolin, banjo, and violin.  He also used the violin for a writing exercise by making familiar sounds. The kids wrote down what they thought the sounds were, and Waldman then turned their guesses into poems.

The point, he said, “is just to have fun with words. That’s what it’s all about.”

Learn more about Waldman at www.kenwaldman.com.

See if you can get the trick in Waldman’s Mattapoisett poems.

A Special Mattapoisett Poem

Maybe you like to read
Adventure stories, like explorers
Taking on lions in Africa,
Traveling to far places.
A book can do that.
Perhaps you like to read
Of foreign lands like France,
India, Japan, Brazil,
Sweden. Every book is different.
Every book has something
To teach you. Learn how to build
Tree houses. Learn how to fly.

An Extra-Special Mattapoisett Poem

My trick may fool you. I’m
A tricky writer from Alaska.
That is so very true, but
There’s so much more. It
Always makes me glad, a
Poem like this. Please keep
On top of things. Please do so
In order to solve the puzzle. I
Sometimes fool kids. Still, it’s
Easy to see if you follow me.
The trick is obvious. Still, it
Teaches something different.