"The natives, who have
a strong sense of rhythm, know nothing of verse, or at least did not know
anything before the times of schools, where they were taught hymns. One evening
out in the maize field...." from 'Out of Africa' by Karen Blixen. (continued...)
Contemporary Speech Patterns = Good?
I'm reading Ruth Padel's 'The Poem and the Journey' and just want to raise the issue of whether poetry should use contemporary speech patterns if it is to be considered worthy. Continued...
Why is Poetry like Wine?
Victoria Moore writes a column about wine and I caught this at the end of one of her pieces, trying to convince readers to spend money on a pricey bottle. "It's like the difference betwen words and poetry. As a New York Times critic once wrote, 'Poetry is ordinary language raised to the nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.' And when you put it like that, £20 doesn't seem too much to ask for pinot noir poetry." Other comparisons between the two are welcome!
Some brief reviews of poetry books for children. Starting with two by
POETRY BOOK for KS4 and above - including TEACHERS!
I've just got a copy of a brilliant little anthology called The Ropes - poems to hang on to. It's edited by Sophie Hannah and John Hegley and contains 20 poems by men at one end; turn it over and you've got 20 poems by women. There's a high percentage of new poems, many of which will appeal to teenagers, although it's 'not a book for teenagers. Teenagers are welcome to read it...but the point...was for the writers of the individual poems to think about themselves as teenagers - what advice would they give their former selves?' Great stuff - full review in autumn
WHAT'S A SONNET, MISS?
My teacher says a sonnet is a poem Of fourteen lines. You have to make it rhyme In certain ways, she said. Most of the time It goes A B B A and --
Some thoughts from the 'Great Poets of the 20th Century' series in the Guardian over the last week. Firstly, Craig Raine introducing T S Eliot. '...the reader shouldn't expect anything in the way of conventional 'meaning' since the poetry was anyway fetched up from the dark womb of the poet's unconscious.' Odd metaphor, but we get the gist. Then: 'All contemporary poetry when it is contemporary is initially baffling to its readers.'
WHO put the VERSE in PERVERSITY?
Here's a nice quote from George Barker about his attitude to poetry (taken from the Guardian Review a few weeks ago): 'I believe the responsibility of the poet is to assert and affirm the human principle of perversity ... I believe the nature of the poet to be at heart anarchic so that, in the inconceivable eventuality of ... a society possessing no faults to which one could rationally object, it would still be the job of a poet to object.' See also the review of Barker's life The Chameleon Poet: http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/biography/0,,660088,00.html
The COMPANY of POETS
Ian Sansom, himself a poet, has this to say: 'Most of us would go a long way to avoid the company of poets. They're at best disagreeable, and at worst repulsive. Selfish, testy, irresponsible, humourless, swollen-headed, and infinite liars, they're like crazy aunts or men with stains on their trousers who think it's funny to swear.' OK, students, your comments please...
WHY is a POEM like a CRIME NOVEL?
In conversation with poet and crime writer Sophie Hannah I commented that the two genres seemed quite different. She replied that the main similarity lay in the way you had to think through each of them. Plotting a crime novel is like plotting a poem: you have to get everything in the right place. Think about it: especially those who reckon poems are just a spontaneous outpouring...
PEOPLE WRITE POETRY BECAUSE THEY WANT TO!
It’s worth putting this observation in front of your students:
The interesting thing about poetry is – people write it because they want to, not because they have to.
OK – that’s not entirely true.
Students may be asked (requested/required/instructed/told) to write poems. More of that later.
Some poets might feel they have to write some more poems because they are a poet and their publisher wants another collection. But why did they start writing poems in the first place? Not because it was going to bring them riches (unless their work got into the GCSE syllabus of course – but that’s another story.)
The Poet Laureate probably feels he has to write poems. It’s a responsibility that goes with the job.
But there are a LOT of POEMS written every year, every week, every day. They are written by LOTS of DIFFERENT kinds of PEOPLE. They don’t have to. They just want to.
You can’t say that about many other types of writing.
AQA: NO HUMOUR, LITTLE WIT?
Have you noticed how little humour there is in the poetry we study with students? Just skim through the AQA anthology for instance and see how many laughs there are. Perhaps a laugh is asking too much. Look out for a smile, a light witticism, even. Hard to find.
Perhaps this is another reason why the poetry aspect of GCSE is hard going for many students - it's all so damn serious. Grim, some might say. There will be those who argue that deprivation, death, poverty and violence appeal to those reluctant males. Maybe. But think how humour appeals to them also. I can recall a dozen short stories, not lacking in serious intent, which nevertheless were laced with wit and made us all smile. This is a hard quality to find in poetry, and especially in the poetry we are required to teach.
Questions for you to think about...
There is a curious change in poems we enjoy as youngsters and those we experience later. Poetry for young readers is characterised by fun, word play and wit. What happens when we reach double figures? Does all amusement have to be, like childish things, put away? Are such qualities only for childrern? Obviously not.
Where can we find poems with a seam of humour, a wry wit, these days? Suggestions would be welcome! In the meantime, ask why it is that poetry remains po-faced while prose manages to mingle humour and serious intent?
GRIM STUFF
Not only is the pre-1914 selection lacking humour, it's also downright grim: death (Jonson), poverty and loss (Wordsworth and Yeats), death (Tichborne), murder (Browning) death (Hardy) and so it goes on. The only wit is down to the Bard, and that's a bit esoteric. The most joyous we get is a darksome bloody burn until Clare gives us a burst of summer beaming forth. I'm starting to wonder whether the reason I like poetry is bcause basically I'm a miserable old git.
Are the poems in the other sections any less grim?
Teachers not well versed
So says the TES reporting on what Ofsted says... How do you come to that conclusion when in two-thirds of the schools it surveyed, poetry teaching was rated good or better?
Then there is the criticism that teachers are 'teaching the same small number of poems, many of which were lightweight.' Oh heaven forbid that we should share words just because they're fun! And don't forget, Mr/Ms Ofsted, that a poem may be old hat to you but fresh as a snowdrop to the child hearing it for the first time. Moreover, I'm not sure that 'The Highwayman', 'The Listeners', 'The Magic Box' are lightweight at all. In fact, I'd recommend that all secondary teachers share them with their classes. Certainly my very able Y9 class in a top international school appreciated 'The Highwayman' and found it an inspiration for their own writing.
What is important is that these much read poems are treated in an open and creative way. Quite right, Bethan Marshall, for saying 'It is a pity that poetry is not assessed more through coursework. That would give schools a chance to do more interesting, exploratory work'. Or not assessed at all, perhaps! But no - then it would never get taught, would it?
Poetry – How Personal, How Public?
Many writers use their writing to express things about their own lives. Poets are especially prone to this. Sometimes the poem is clearly autobiographical – and there are many of these in the anthologies.
• Which poems would you list as purely autobiographical? • Which ones are probably based on the writer’s own life? • Which have something to do with the writer’s life – but use, say, an incident to inspire a poem on a less personal topic? • Which poems seem to have little to do with the poet’s life?
Provide a printed grid or an electronic version for students to fill in the titles of poems already read. Add others as they read them. They should be prepared to be unsure. The advantage of an electronic version is they can change their minds.
Stuart Jeffries, writing about snow in the Guardian (‘London’s Day of Innocence’ 3.2.09) mentions experiences such as “The sound snow makes as it packs under your boots! The velvety swish of car tyres on unteated side streets! … The way you fingers swell after throwing snowballs while wearing functionally useless woollen gloves! (We need poets to invent names for all these things and write sonnet cycles to their joys).” Indeed!
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