I’ve always supported National Poetry Day, mainly as a teacher encouraging my students to write but also sharing resources for other teachers to use in their classrooms. My involvement in this began quite ‘successfully’ – Teachit taking and also sharing these; a sense that other teachers found them useful – but over the years this has lessened.
There’s much more I could say, but I’ve done so many times on this blog and elsewhere, and especially in promoting the resources produced over the years. So I won’t repeat. I haven’t presented any new resources for this year, apart from a reference to Teachit highlighting one of my previous as relevant to this year’s theme of ‘Refuge’, and a general promotion of using list poems as useful and effective ways to encourage students to write on any given theme.
My one steadfast suggestion has always been to encourage students to write; stimulate and support them to write. Too many ideas I have encountered over the years ask students to read and analyse poems. They should be writing poems.
A final comment: I’ve always been aware of the squeeze on the English curriculum which doesn’t encourage teachers to try and find the time for creative writing, ever. For me, National Poetry Day was/is at least one event that might provide a moment to insist.
No, this is the final comment: there is the occasional carping or precious observation from others (poets/writers) that poetry is for every day, and so on, and not needing this national singular focus. Yes, carping and precious. And silly. I’d still encourage poeple to grab the moment, no matter how it is promoted and useful.
The following is one generative TextArt poem I have produced on the theme of Refuge. I have a few others… The idea is to take a line – in this case a ‘literary’ line – that contains the word refuge (or a synonym would be fine/great) and play around with this.
I will share one or two more next Thursday.
(The line is by John Ashbery from ‘Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror’)
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