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About Me
- Susan Harwood
- It's one of those odd things . . . I live in my little house by the sea and listen to the radio and reckon I know best about more-or-less everything . . . as I keep telling the news-casters, the policiticians and all the experts interviewed there. I shout quite loud - but I'm beginning to suspect they can't hear! Sometimes, I write to my MP . . . but there's always more to say. So, here it is!
BOOK ON A BLOG
THE BRICKS IN THE CAVE - A full length children's adventure story by Susan Harwood - click on the book to read it.
ANOTHER BOOK ON A BLOG
TIMES RHYMES - For people who want to learn 'Times Tables' the easy way!
4 comments:
I agree it needn't be serious ~ but I love that often there is a nugget of truth that really makes one think.
I subscribe to about.com classic poem daily and this is today's offering:
A Poison tree by william Blake
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe;
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I water'd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with my smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,
And into my garden stole
When the night had veil'd the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree
I'm sure you would like this site, Susan!
Best Wishes
Rosy
Hello Rosy
I think there is a lot of truth in some poetry. I often read a poem or two to my children before they go to sleep. (It used to be every day but it's trailing off now they are bigger and read to themselves.)
I think one of the reasons people don't like poetry is because it is sometimes taken too 'seriously' and this can be off-putting. (Have you heard the awful voices people use on 'Poetry Please' on Radio 4?)
When I read poetry out loud, I read it the same way as I would read stories or newspaper reports or any other kind of interesting writing. Sometimes, when the children know the poem from school they say they hadn't noticed the humour before because they had only heard it read in a solemn or reverent way.
(The converse is also true - that some very serious things get trivialised when poetry is 'studied'.)
I say poetry isn't serious because if we think it is more serious than any other kind of writing we may miss out on an awful lot of good stuff - including the serious bits.
This reply springs from experience within our particular family but I think one can fairly well generalise too and suggest if poetry were not approached in an 'over-serious' way in schools and in the spoken media - more people would be open to it and like it.
What d'you think?
Susan
P.S. I'm off to look at the site you recommend. S,
Rosy - I've taken a look and I'm not sure if I want a daily email. I'll think about that - meanwhile, in looking for the site you mention, I came across another site with daily contemporary poems and it had this one as an introduction / example and I like it so I'll put it here in case you like it too!
A New Poet
Finding a new poet
is like finding a new wildflower
out in the woods. You don't see
its name in the flower books, and
nobody you tell believes
in its odd color or the way
its leaves grow in splayed rows
down the whole length of the page. In fact
the very page smells of spilled
red wine and the mustiness of the sea
on a foggy day—the odor of truth
and of lying.
And the words are so familiar,
so strangely new, words
you almost wrote yourself, if only
in your dreams there had been a pencil
or a pen or even a paintbrush,
if only there had been a flower.
LINDA PASTAN
Heroes In Disguise
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
This is the link
http://poems.com/about_poems/new_poet.php
Hello Susan
Yes, I'm totally with you on this one!
Primary School spoiled poetry for me for years and it was only well into my twenties that I began to appreciate that poetry can be humourous and can make one laugh out loud but also can bring tears to the eye and some can really 'hit the spot' quite unexpectedly. And I feel that so frequently 'poetry' is read in a very pompous way.
I used to read poetry to my children too ~ even when they were very young and had no idea what it was all about ~ but I thought the rhythm of the words would be soothing to them. My elder daughter wrote some truly beautiful poetry when she was in years 11, 12 and 13 at school. I'm not sure if she still does ~ probably too 'bogged down' with child rearing at the moment!
I loved the imagery in the poem you included here and I will certainly look at the site ~ thank you!
But right now I must dash ~ off to my reading group tonight!
Best Wishes
Rosy
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