poetry please
By Tracey
O'Rourke Who writes poetry?
Poetry is seen as a
means to unburdening a tormented soul. Wordsworth's famous line from the introduction
to the Lyrical Ballads about poetry being, 'the spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings...' inspires poetic release. But he goes onto say
that it is an 'emotion recollected in tranquillity' and 'the music of harmonious
metrical language, the sense of difficulty overcome'. Poetry isn't about an un-fettered
outpouring of emotion but an art form where emotion is mediated by thought and
crafted into a medium to be shared with an audience. Why
don't we read poetry?
So what makes poetry difficult for people? Poems
used to be learnt by heart, nowadays when you hear a song you like, you incorporate
it into yourself, singing it over and over again until its memorised. I
believe that we can do this with poetry, that we should be teaching our pupils
to do this by listening to it; by reading it out loud; writing it, practising
the different forms so that the mechanics of it become as familiar as popular
songs. A rhythmic beginning
It's important to start
with young children, laying the foundations for rhythm, rhyme and pleasure in
language. But they also need to learn early how to write verse. I had some excellent
sonnets from a Y10 class in a tough Sheffield school because they had been taught
how to write ballads in their first year at school so metre and rhyme were familiar
to them. There is plenty of good practice in schools but a
perception exists that 'poetry is for toffs, brainy people'. In my childhood,
poetry and songs were never far away. When my parents had people around for parties,
the entertainment was singing and poetry - ballads like Dangerous Dan McGrew,
or The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert Service, for example. It meant that poetry
was an act of engaging with other people, that it was pleasurable. In
all the classes I teach, whether they are undergraduates, teenagers or younger
children, I get them to read the work to each other just to listen to what sounds
odd or good, emphasising the idea that poetry is physical, has sound, that it
has to be heard and articulated. Poetry has to work on this level even if the
end reading is done privately in the head from a book. Once
any group become familiar with this way of reading, they realise that above all,
it can be exhilarating to write and hear your work read by others. Some
lessons for younger children
There are lots of excellent books for teaching
poetry and very useful writing ideas to present to classes. This one from Matthew
Sweeney and John Hartley Williams' book Teach Yourself Poetry (Hodder & Stoughton)
using the poem Who is Who by the Slovenian poet, Tomaž Šalamun. I
modified and used this exercise with a group of 'gifted and talented' 11 year
olds in a summer school in Doncaster. It raises lots of issues about self-esteem
and the kind of things we are allowed to say about ourselves, which you may want
to explore. I started off with an information sheet for the children to fill in
so that they would not be coming to the poem unprepared and facing a blank page.
You'll need dictionaries. All About Me
Complete
the following statements as best you can.
My name is ..........
Five good
things I am good at: - ........................................
- ........................................
- ........................................
- ........................................
- ........................................
Five things I enjoy doing: Five words about the kind
of person I think I am: Five good things other people say about me: Write down
five qualities you would like to have when you are grown up: My five favourite
words are: Find five words that mean marvellous/ wonderful etc: Find five other
words that mean 'king' or 'queen': Find five celestial words, that is words to
do with space, the universe or heavens: Then read the poem
to the class a couple of times. Tell them that they can write their own Who's
who poem using the format by Šalamun with their information. Once they feel
sure that they can write the most outrageous things about themselves the children
get hooked. One tip: if you want them to read out their
work allow the shyer ones to get a friend to read it because some feel uncomfortable
saying how wonderful they are. Telling, isn't it? You're
by Sylvia Plath
I use this one with older students 15+ age because
the poem is more complex in its use of metaphor.
I prepare the students, before showing them the
poem, by getting them to think of someone they
know well, then playing the 'metaphor game' where
you select various categories of nouns, for example
cars, weather, fruit, furniture, season, etc.,
and then say, if this person were a type of car
what would they be? Then we read and discuss the
poem at length before writing their own. For poetry
events around the country visit www.poetrysoc.com
Tracey O'Rourke is a poet and a supply teacher in Sheffield. | 
