Passing on the love… teaching poetry

I have always loved poetry… and written (or tried to write) poems almost as long as I have been writing anything. My mum  loved poetry and it was an integral part of our education. I still get so much pleasure from verse, my favourite poets, Martín Espada, Patrick McDonogh, Jon Loomis, oh and many, many more.

As  a teacher I tried to open my students’ eyes to the joy of words and language, not always easy for most students, for the students I latterly taught in pupil referral units, it seemed like a greater challenge. However, I chose an exam syllabus which allowed free choice of the poems we studied and I have to say, honestly, that the poetry lessons were some of the most successful and enjoyable.

Sometimes I had to sneak poems up on the students and an example of this is a poem by Carol Ann Duffy, our poet laureate.

Many of my students had had brushes with the law, shop lifting, breaking and entering, taking without consent, mugging… So I would start the lesson with a general conversation about ‘nicking things.’ Sooner or later I would be asked whether I had ever stolen anything; I would prevaricate and ask them instead what the strangest thing was they had ever stolen, not money or cigarettes or bikes, but the strangest thing. There were the usual odd items, traffic cones, hats, garden ornaments… and then they would ask me what the strangest thing was that I had ever stolen.

I would glance at the door as if checking that the head teacher was not about, then lower my voice and say slowly: “The most unusual thing I ever stole?” I stopped to think, then slowly continued. “A snowman.”

There was a chorus of comments and questions and then I’d nod and repeat it “A Snowman.” They knew I told stories so they’d wait to see what was behind my extraordinary claim. “Midnight. He looked magnificent; a tall, white mute beneath the winter moon.” I’d pause and glance around; they would mostly have guessed this was going to be something other than a confession by me of a minor and eccentric crime but they wanted to know more.

” I wanted him, a mate with a mind as cold as the slice of ice within my own brain.”

As the poem progressed I began to read it but also act out what was happening, reaching up to take the snowman’s head, staggering as I tried to shift the torso “He weighed a ton.” I was vicious as I spoke about the children who would wake in the morning and find their snowman gone, and then become perplexed as I thought about my life of loneliness and petty crime. I described myself as ‘a mucky ghost’ and watched my hand twisting the doorknob, then pretend to breath on the mirror of the bedroom I had broken into.

I would aggressively pretend to kick the snowman to death, “I took a run and booted him. Again. Again. My breath ripped out in rags.” When I came to the end and said “You don’t understand a word I’m saying, do you?” they would always respond thinking I was actually asking them, not reading the last line of the poem.

This poem always provoked great debate and discussion as the students tried to unpick the character of the narrator, and quite often it would generate some good written work too. I don’t think this would have happened if I had just walked into the class and told them we were going to study a poem as part of the English course!

Stealing

The most unusual thing I ever stole? A snowman.
Midnight. He looked magnificent; a tall, white mute
beneath the winter moon. I wanted him, a mate
with a mind as cold as the slice of ice
within my own brain. I started with the head.

Better off dead than giving in, not taking
what you want. He weighed a ton; his torso,
frozen stiff, hugged to my chest, a fierce chill
piercing my gut. Part of the thrill was knowing
that children would cry in the morning. Life’s tough.

Sometimes I steal things I don’t need. I joy-ride cars
to nowhere, break into houses just to have a look.
I’m a mucky ghost, leave a mess, maybe pinch a camera.
I watch my gloved hand twisting the doorknob.
A stranger’s bedroom. Mirrors. I sigh like this – Aah.
It took some time. Reassembled in the yard,
he didn’t look the same. I took a run
and booted him. Again. Again. My breath ripped out
in rags. It seems daft now. Then I was standing
alone among lumps of snow, sick of the world.

Boredom. Mostly I’m so bored I could eat myself.
One time, I stole a guitar and thought I might
learn to play. I nicked a bust of Shakespeare once,
flogged it, but the snowman was the strangest.
You don’t understand a word I’m saying, do you?

Carol Ann Duffy