Writing poetry

Writing Poetry

Out of the different approaches to writing poetry, I found that the inspirations from imagery helped me the most. This is perhaps because, as I have discovered during this course, that I am a very visual learner. I have always had a very active imagination and have found that whenever I try to remember something, or find my way somewhere, I always have a picture in my head of what I am looking for. Another reason that I may have found this approach worked best for me was that I found it was the one which left the most room for individual interpretation. Being a creative person by nature, I found this slightly less structured approach to writing more comfortable.

Writing on demand has never been my forte. I always find it difficult to start a piece of work, whether it is poetry or an academic essay. I often get very frustrated when I start writing and it is only once I am in the flow of writing that that I start to enjoy it. By providing an impetus or starting point, it does make the work easier. However if there is too much of a formal structure set out for me, I do sometimes tend to feel trapped and then over analyse my work. Often I will re do the work several times and still feel unfulfilled with the final result.

It is difficult to say which task would have developed my poetry skills the most. I think that all of them would have improved my skills in some way which would be equal to the next. I would say perhaps that the first task, using birdsong as a stimulus and writing the Ode poem, would have improved my skills of writing what could be described as traditional poetry. However It could be said that these ‘improvements’ are actually just a greater understand of how to mimic already established work. But then is that the process f learning in itself? I don’t know.

In order to develop these starting points towards writing poetry I eel it is first important that a teacher use all of them with his or her pupils. It would be important to explain to them why they would be using these different approaches and that some pupils may find one process more useful than another, helping them understand how they learn.

It would be important to make it clear that it was important to draft your work, perhaps make each exercise a draft of a poem. During this process pupils could perhaps work to gather looking at each others work and discussing what works, what does not and why. This way the learners can find which words work in which order and by working together, figuring it out for themselves would give them a better understanding of what they were doing without just doing it because they were told to. Before this is done it is important the class is shown a poem that works. This could be a published poem, as well as the work of an anonymous former pupil. Not only does this show the learners ideas of form and structure, but by doing this it demonstrates to the learners that they do not have to be a professional writer to write a good poem. Also by showing the work of a formal pupil, some children will have an extra drive to do well so as there work may be shown to the next class, providing a sort of unspoken reward system.

To seemingly take a break from poetry, and make the classes more varied and exciting, pupils could work on recording imagery in a number of ways. For example the class could be taken outside of the class and note down everything they see. Once back in the class room they could be asked to take some of these words, separate them and then write down how these words make them feel. A similar process could be used to describe what they hear.
To develop their vocabulary further the children could then take some of the words they have come up with and look them up in a thesaurus. This process too could be turned into a game. For a example a stopwatch game. Each group or table could be given a certain amount of time to find as many words as possible to describe beauty for example. The table with the most variety wins.

Poetry can be a hard subject to approach for many people. There seems to a stigma attached to poetry and the idea that good poetry can only be written and appreciated by middle class academics. This perception is often in-avertedly passed down to children, and poetry is therefore often seen as ‘un cool’. This is probably because of a lack of understanding towards what poetry actually is. I feel it is important to introduce a wide range of poetry to a class, including music, and start debates within a class. Get them talking and it is more likely that they will become interested. Activities such as the tasks we (the group) have just carried out can really draw pupils in, in a different ways which can be made fun. When finally presenting pupils work I feel it is important that they have a since of pride and value in their work. By creating a display board for the children to show their work, it gives there poems value which I feel is crucial to an individuals development and self confidence.