Edited by Ellen-Arwen Tristram, Friday, 3 Nov 2017, 10:32
Having put aside TMA01 for the time being, I've got stuck into poetry! (Had yesterday off as I had a meeting with my local MP, John Penrose, on behalf of the lobby group Thirty Eight Degrees.)
I must say: it's rather wonderful to listen and read poetry and for it to be called 'working!' I know a lot of the poems already, which works in my favour and some of them off by heart. I always read poetry aloud if I can, so I didn't really need this pointing out to me but it was great fun listening to all the recordings. I took longer than the specified hour because I re-listened to some of them, and did a little background reading on some of the poets that I didn't know.
I particularly enjoyed 'Beasley Street' by John Cooper Clarke, and thought it was immensely powerful. Apparently they had to cut out the line referencing Keith Joseph on the BBC which I guess makes sense - it was in the middle of Thatcher's reign of terror, and he was supposedly the man behind the scenes with power. Really powerful poem.
I hadn't read the Sylvia Plath 'You're' poem before, but I enjoyed it. Both of Grace Nichols' poems I know and enjoy - particularly having them read to me; ditto John Agard and Benjamin Zephaniah (who I have heard speak aloud at an event when I was in year nine - what a long time ago!) Paradise Lost is a little more opaque to me; Milton is always going to be a struggle I think.
Anyway, I could rabbit on about the poems - but basically, I listened to them and had fun.
In case anyone reads this, my idea for a definition of a poem was this: 'Poems are a type of text that, unlike prose, do not have to adhere to conventional 'correct' language usage. They may have metre or rhyme; likewise they may not. They are generally not written as a block of text, and tend to feature strong imagery and other literary devices.'
So - what do you think a poem is? (Imaginary person reading this)
Unit 2: Beginnings of Poetry
Having put aside TMA01 for the time being, I've got stuck into poetry! (Had yesterday off as I had a meeting with my local MP, John Penrose, on behalf of the lobby group Thirty Eight Degrees.)
I must say: it's rather wonderful to listen and read poetry and for it to be called 'working!' I know a lot of the poems already, which works in my favour and some of them off by heart. I always read poetry aloud if I can, so I didn't really need this pointing out to me but it was great fun listening to all the recordings. I took longer than the specified hour because I re-listened to some of them, and did a little background reading on some of the poets that I didn't know.
I particularly enjoyed 'Beasley Street' by John Cooper Clarke, and thought it was immensely powerful. Apparently they had to cut out the line referencing Keith Joseph on the BBC which I guess makes sense - it was in the middle of Thatcher's reign of terror, and he was supposedly the man behind the scenes with power. Really powerful poem.
I hadn't read the Sylvia Plath 'You're' poem before, but I enjoyed it. Both of Grace Nichols' poems I know and enjoy - particularly having them read to me; ditto John Agard and Benjamin Zephaniah (who I have heard speak aloud at an event when I was in year nine - what a long time ago!) Paradise Lost is a little more opaque to me; Milton is always going to be a struggle I think.
Anyway, I could rabbit on about the poems - but basically, I listened to them and had fun.
In case anyone reads this, my idea for a definition of a poem was this: 'Poems are a type of text that, unlike prose, do not have to adhere to conventional 'correct' language usage. They may have metre or rhyme; likewise they may not. They are generally not written as a block of text, and tend to feature strong imagery and other literary devices.'
So - what do you think a poem is? (Imaginary person reading this)