Blog
World Poetry Day
Friday 19th March 2021
This is a day to inspire the celebration of poetry all over the world, encouraging reading, writing, and teaching.
With all of the exam furore at the moment, and pupils working hard to ensure they will be awarded the grade they deserve, let's take a moment to celebrate something nostalgic - Poetry! It's World Poetry Day on Sunday 21st March.
Poetry is not just for aesthetes! Every one of us has a favourite verse from their childhood, even if you have lost touch with poetry as you have grown up. It's often because of the rhythm and the rhyme scheme, which so easily trips off the tongue, that some verses stay in our memory for life. From nonsense verse like Spike Milligan's 'On the Ning Nang Nong' or Edward Lear's 'The Owl and the Pussy Cat', to poems popularised on the box, like Pam Ayre's 'Oh I Wish I'd Looked After Me Teeth' or Victoria Wood's 'The Ballad of Barry and Freda (Let's Do It)', everyone has a verse they can recite. And with them, memories come flooding back.
Is your teen struggling with their English Poetry Anthology, or still finding their feet preparing for the unseen poetry paper? Remind them of some rhymes they knew and enjoyed when they were younger and less bogged down by the pressures of study. Poetry is to be read aloud, listened to and enjoyed, and while the English syllabus' anthologies are certainly something of a challenge, it's one worth rising to. Seeing language used sparingly to evoke emotions is a skill to be admired - so let's hear it for poetry!
Let's support our Year 11s as they navigate their way through Percy Shelley's 'Ozymandias', Seamus Heaney's 'Storm on the Island' and Imtiaz Dharker's 'Tissue'... They may seem like a world away from the fun rhymes and ditties we enjoyed growing up, but when understood, they too are a joy to behold. Let's mark World Poetry Day and inspire the celebration of poetry in our homes, as well as our schools. Get in touch with Achievers Tutoring if your teen needs help igniting an appreciation of poetry and getting to grips with their studies.
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