General Chat

I hated my English teacher but she failed to put me off poetry! Love discovering something new, I write too (occasionally).

I loved it. At school ( one of them) when I was about 10, we had a teacher Mr T who read us poetry, always remember him reading "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes, the level of suspense he would put into it would chill us to the bone.

We regularly learnt poems at school. I remember Leisure by W H Davies and a large chunk of Il Penseroso by Milton .I enjoyed it except when we had to write answers to questions like "why did he use the word so and so when there were others he could have used?" How do I know? :-S :-S

I remember having to learn If for a Free Church music/speaking festival when I was about 13.

I can remember bits of poems but not any complete ones. When we had the Writing group on here we did write some poetry, it is harder than you think. I still have some poetry books but forget all about them these days. In this room just looked up at the top shelf and can see there is a book of Keats up there. I will have to get it down and have a look.
I like Dylan Thomas. And I very much like Poems and songs by Rof McKuen

"For every star that falls to earth a new one glows.
For every dream that fades away a new one grows.
When things are not what they would seem
you must keep following your dream.”

Frompoems in the Listen to the warm book.

What a lovely thought provoking poem.

When I was at school, we also did a lot of poetry and I remember Walter de la Mare Gwyn and also Christina Rosetti although cant remember the poem!

We were often given pictures of sunsets, countryside etc and had to make up a poem.

When I was a volunteer in adult education, we taught a few to create a poem with just 5 lines like this.

Snow
Silently falling
Soft and fluffy
Laying on the ground
Silently

It was very rewarding what the adult learners came up with.

Florence in the hebrides

That's new to me too Ann.
Some lovely thoughts there.

My earliest memory of poetry in school was having to learn the poem Silver by Walter de la Mare in junior school.

Once in secondary school, it was a regular occurance to have to learn poems or a chunk of a long poem such as Hiawatha as part of our English studies.
2 that I particularly remember are
Night Mail ..by W.H. Auden.... ..and
What is this life, if full of care..by W.H. Davies

We also learn poems to recite at choral speaking events in town.

Did you like it at school.

I have not come across the following poem before and thought it was lovely

Your life is like a quilt
And everybody weaves their share
Some weave huge great tapestries
And some weave tiny squares
Some squares bring you laughter
And some will bring you tears
Some are stitched and sewn by those
Who are no longer here
In places there are threads
From people choosing not to stay
And every time you touch these threads
It brings back all the pain
But every little thread
That weaves its joy and pain and fun
Has stitched a quilt together
Of the person you’ve become
And every little tiny part
Has slowly taught you how
To weave your contribution
Into the blanket you have now
So I know there are squares that comfort you
And some that you dislike
But without them all you wouldn’t have
This patchwork of your life
*******
Becky Hemsley 2020
Image created with Bing
'Patchwork' is from the book Talking to the Wild
https://a.co/d/4I7vHJl