Poetry minor lessons examine some of the 'Nation's Favourite Poems' - according to the book of that name! These include 'If'' by R Kipling, 'Sea-Fever' by John Masefield, 'The Daffodils' by William Wordsworth - moving towards more modern poetry such as Stevie Smith's 'Not Waving But Drowning', and 'Twelve Songs' by Auden.


Students are encouraged to perceive the construction, sound, context and meaning of poems, and of course, the vocabulary, enabling them to learn 'old and new' words. Inspired by W. H. Davies' poem, 'Leisure', to leave the classroom, students are challenged to create word pictures of what they see, here or there, connecting it with personal insight.


Here are three examples:


CHILD SPIDER


Hey, what are you doing?
Please move away from my foot.


I don't like spiders.


Hey, why do you crawl
Between my toes?
There are no flies there.


Hey, my foot is trembling.
It does not like you.
It asks that I walk away!                Naoki Hara.






MOUNT ROKKO


Two boys on a bus.
Both are sleeping.


At the farm,
They're too young to ride a pony.


Together on a mountain path;
One carries a ball of wool,
The other holds a stick.


Weary from the climb,
My mother carries me,
Another lady shoulders my brother.


Again, on the bus, we fall asleep.


But the memory of that day
Still remains awake.               Mitsu Takeuchi






HOMELESS


The heavy silence can be felt,
As you watch sweet tears slowly melt
Down the frozen, pale cheeks;
Drop by drop, unhealed heart quickly leaks.


"Home" she used to say before she fell asleep,
Helpless, hopeless, down and deep.
Then she'd look towards the sky.
"Bring me peace," she said. "Make me fly."


But home is not a word or a place.
It's the feeling when you don't have to face
The world's misery on your own;
And yet the truth remains unknown,
For whenever she closes her eyes,
All that's home painlessly dies.                   Julia Kuzniak