Some years ago a teacher in Stepney was sacked from his school for encouraging pupils to write poems reflecting life in the East End. Now, he's back with another project.
Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below.
1. When did Chris Searle teach at Sir John Cass School in Stepney?
2. What were the poems about?
3. What did Chris do against the wishes of the head teacher?
4. How long did the students remain on strike?
5. According to Faridha Karim, what are the children not interested in?
6. How many schools did Chris do poetry workshops at?
Let if flow, Joe
Let your feelings speak for you
Let the people know what you know
They're the honest words of young EastEnders which got this former teacher the sack. Chris Searle taught English at Sir John Cass School in Stepney back in the 70s and encouraged pupils to write poetry about their lives.
They looked at their area and they saw what was good about it, but they also saw what was bad about it, and that's what came out in their poetry. Quite a lot of their poems talked about bad housing because at that time housing in this area was quite grim for some families.
Against the wishes of the head teacher he published a book of their revealing work. He was told to leave and hundreds of children walked out in support.
And I can remember, even as I came out here, there was one of the parents who I knew, who had been quite active in the postman’s strike, he was a postman, and he was teaching them how to picket at the school gates. I mean, this was very much a part of life in East London during that period.
The children went back after three days but it took Chris two years to be reinstated, so he set up a writers group for his students and other locals, some of whom were young Bengalis.
It's like a way for these young people who are quite dissociated from what was going on, not interested in education, not interested in… well, not… not feeling like they're involved or included in school and education, and then they kind of came out of their kind of comfort zone.
Chris has been back in East London working with young people again as part of a new Spoken Word Project.
The young people that I met in the four schools that I did the workshops in were tremendous, they were full of spirit and full of pride of being East London young people.
And this new anthology of young East End voices has been published without controversy.
Ayshea Buskh, BBC London News.
KEY:
1 in the 70’s
2 the good and bad things in the area / bad housing
3 he published a book with the poems
4 for three days
5 their education/school
6 four
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta Poems. Mostrar todas las entradas
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jueves, 11 de mayo de 2017
martes, 3 de noviembre de 2015
10 Questions for Poet John Ashbery
American poet John Ashbery talked to TIME some time ago about fame, poverty and art criticism.
Self-study activity:
Watch the video and say whether the statements below are true or false.
1 John Ashbery doesn't think of himself as the most important living poet in America.
2 John Ashbery reads what critics say about him.
3 John Ashbery enjoys reading his poetry in public.
4 John Ashbery thinks poetry is less popular these days.
5 John Ashbery is gay.
6 John Ashbery lives off poetry.
7 John Ashbery would rather be America's most important living poet than anything else.
Hi, I’m Belinda Luscombe. I’m an editor-at-large at Time Magazine, but you’re not here for me. You’re here for John Ashbery, often called America’s most important living poet. Thanks for letting us come here, Mr Ashbery.
Thank you for coming.
You won an award from the National Book Association last night. Are you, in fact, America’s most important living poet?
I don’t think so important. I get talked about a lot. But for many years the jury has been out and probably will be on the question of my importance. I enjoy writing the way I do, which doesn’t please a lot of people, pleases others enormously.
Do you ever read what the critics write about you, what poetry and literary critics write about you and just think, this is hysterical or this is ridiculous?
No, I don’t feel that this is ridiculous because I don’t know. Maybe they’re right. I haven’t got that much confidence in my writing. That’s more like, you know, hope rather than confidence.
Do other forms of poetry interest you, poetry slams, those kind of things?
I don’t really like poetry readings very much, including my own. I hate the sound of my own voice, for an instance I can’t stand listening to myself reading poetry. And that goes true for most other poets.
Do you think that there’s any way in which poetry, which in my lifetime and probably in yours seems to have become less and less popular, do you think there’s a way that it can become more part of people’s life again?
No… My perception is…
I’m prepared to be wrong.
… is that there’s a much bigger audience for poetry than there was when I was young. In fact, when I began writing there was really only one poetry magazine in the country. Poetry. Today there seems there’s so many magazines, presses, so many poets I have the impression that poetry is liked more by those who like it than was the case in the past.
Now you grew up in an era where it was considered shameful to be gay, and that is no longer the prevailing view, I would say.
Oh, really?
You don’t… well? I guess the jury’s out.
Nobody told me.
It’s certainly not as prevailing as it was. Would you go that far with me?
Sure.
Do you think if that attitude had been current in your life it would have changed your work?
I’ve never been sure how that would’ve worked. There’s a school of criticism who says that my poetry is so tortuous and obscure because I’ve been trying to cover up the fact of my sexuality all these years. And I think that’s an interesting possibility and there may indeed be some truth in it. But I’m not quite sure how much and whether that’s the generating force in my poetry. I think I would’ve been attracted to this kind of poetry anyway.
Do you currently make a living off your poetry?
Heavens, no. I mean, gosh, no. Sucks, no. No, not at all. I’ve made a living teaching, which I’m now retired, that’s one thing poets can do and many of them do to survive.
If you could swap places and you could, instead of being America’s most important living poet, you could be America’s most important living something else, what would you like it to be?
I don’t think I’d wanna be anything else. I think I, I’d rather stick with poetry.
Mr Ashbry, thanks very much.
Thank you.
KEY:
1T 2F 3F 4F 5T 6F 7T
Self-study activity:
Watch the video and say whether the statements below are true or false.
1 John Ashbery doesn't think of himself as the most important living poet in America.
2 John Ashbery reads what critics say about him.
3 John Ashbery enjoys reading his poetry in public.
4 John Ashbery thinks poetry is less popular these days.
5 John Ashbery is gay.
6 John Ashbery lives off poetry.
7 John Ashbery would rather be America's most important living poet than anything else.
Hi, I’m Belinda Luscombe. I’m an editor-at-large at Time Magazine, but you’re not here for me. You’re here for John Ashbery, often called America’s most important living poet. Thanks for letting us come here, Mr Ashbery.
Thank you for coming.
You won an award from the National Book Association last night. Are you, in fact, America’s most important living poet?
I don’t think so important. I get talked about a lot. But for many years the jury has been out and probably will be on the question of my importance. I enjoy writing the way I do, which doesn’t please a lot of people, pleases others enormously.
Do you ever read what the critics write about you, what poetry and literary critics write about you and just think, this is hysterical or this is ridiculous?
No, I don’t feel that this is ridiculous because I don’t know. Maybe they’re right. I haven’t got that much confidence in my writing. That’s more like, you know, hope rather than confidence.
Do other forms of poetry interest you, poetry slams, those kind of things?
I don’t really like poetry readings very much, including my own. I hate the sound of my own voice, for an instance I can’t stand listening to myself reading poetry. And that goes true for most other poets.
Do you think that there’s any way in which poetry, which in my lifetime and probably in yours seems to have become less and less popular, do you think there’s a way that it can become more part of people’s life again?
No… My perception is…
I’m prepared to be wrong.
… is that there’s a much bigger audience for poetry than there was when I was young. In fact, when I began writing there was really only one poetry magazine in the country. Poetry. Today there seems there’s so many magazines, presses, so many poets I have the impression that poetry is liked more by those who like it than was the case in the past.
Now you grew up in an era where it was considered shameful to be gay, and that is no longer the prevailing view, I would say.
Oh, really?
You don’t… well? I guess the jury’s out.
Nobody told me.
It’s certainly not as prevailing as it was. Would you go that far with me?
Sure.
Do you think if that attitude had been current in your life it would have changed your work?
I’ve never been sure how that would’ve worked. There’s a school of criticism who says that my poetry is so tortuous and obscure because I’ve been trying to cover up the fact of my sexuality all these years. And I think that’s an interesting possibility and there may indeed be some truth in it. But I’m not quite sure how much and whether that’s the generating force in my poetry. I think I would’ve been attracted to this kind of poetry anyway.
Do you currently make a living off your poetry?
Heavens, no. I mean, gosh, no. Sucks, no. No, not at all. I’ve made a living teaching, which I’m now retired, that’s one thing poets can do and many of them do to survive.
If you could swap places and you could, instead of being America’s most important living poet, you could be America’s most important living something else, what would you like it to be?
I don’t think I’d wanna be anything else. I think I, I’d rather stick with poetry.
Mr Ashbry, thanks very much.
Thank you.
KEY:
1T 2F 3F 4F 5T 6F 7T
sábado, 19 de septiembre de 2015
Pronunciation poem: The problems of spelling and pronunciation
Here's the famous poem by T.S.Watt (1954) which originally appeared in The Guardian and that has been used countless times in the English class.
The poem is read by Joanne Rudling, from How to spell.
The words highlighted in bold in the poem are those which I think an Intermediate 2 student should know. The rest of the words the poem illustrates would fall into the advanced level.
I take it you already know
Of tough and cough and dough?
But what about, hiccough, thorough and through?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird,
And dead: it's said like bed, not bead
For goodness sake don't call it 'deed'!
Watch out for meat and great and threat...
They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.
(meat-suite, great-straight, threat-debt.)
There isn't a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, or broth in brother,
And here is not in there
But ear is in dear and fear
But not in bear and pear;
And then there's dose and rose
But lose, goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart
Come, come, I've hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I'd learned to speak it when I was five!
But will I write it before I die?
I hope so, I say with a sigh!
The poem is read by Joanne Rudling, from How to spell.
The words highlighted in bold in the poem are those which I think an Intermediate 2 student should know. The rest of the words the poem illustrates would fall into the advanced level.
I take it you already know
Of tough and cough and dough?
But what about, hiccough, thorough and through?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird,
And dead: it's said like bed, not bead
For goodness sake don't call it 'deed'!
Watch out for meat and great and threat...
They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.
(meat-suite, great-straight, threat-debt.)
There isn't a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, or broth in brother,
And here is not in there
But ear is in dear and fear
But not in bear and pear;
And then there's dose and rose
But lose, goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart
Come, come, I've hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I'd learned to speak it when I was five!
But will I write it before I die?
I hope so, I say with a sigh!
jueves, 2 de mayo de 2013
That's what I heard you say -Sony ad
I heard about this ad and poem from Kieran Donaghy through the lesson Love at first sight on his extraordinary blog Film English.
I have been tempted to devise a short gap-fill listening task about the ad, but on second thoughts, I have decided to do nothing, as I feel it is enough that we simply enjoy the sheer beauty of the images, the music and Leonard Cohen's poem without any distractions.
Once you are familiar with the poem, you can try to shadow-read it, that is, recite the poem at the same pace as Leonard Cohen. That way you English pronunciation will improve, especially as far as the rhythm is concerned.
If you have any difficulty with the vocabulary, you can double click on the word you don't understand and the meaning will immediately pop up on screen.
I have been tempted to devise a short gap-fill listening task about the ad, but on second thoughts, I have decided to do nothing, as I feel it is enough that we simply enjoy the sheer beauty of the images, the music and Leonard Cohen's poem without any distractions.
Once you are familiar with the poem, you can try to shadow-read it, that is, recite the poem at the same pace as Leonard Cohen. That way you English pronunciation will improve, especially as far as the rhythm is concerned.
If you have any difficulty with the vocabulary, you can double click on the word you don't understand and the meaning will immediately pop up on screen.
That's What I Heard You Say
Don’t matter if the road is long
Don’t matter if it’s steep
Don’t matter if the page is gone
It’s written that we’ll meet.
I loved you when you opened
Like a lily to the heat
And I love you when it closes
A thousand kisses deep
I know you had to lie to me
I know you had to cheat
You learned it on your father’s knee
And at your mother’s feet.
But did you have to fight your way
Across the burning street
Where all our vital interests lay
A thousand kisses deep
Leonard Cohen
sábado, 24 de marzo de 2012
The best love poems: writers choose their favourites – Lustful gazing, unrequited yearning and passionate wooing – AS Byatt, Seamus Heaney, Hilary Mantel, Jeanette Winterson and many others pick the poems that stole their hearts. Plus Carol Ann Duffy writes a new poem for the occasion.
This was Jeanette Winterson's pick, Echo, by Carol Ann Duffy.
I think I was searching for treasures or stones
in the clearest of pools
when your face…
when your face like the moon in a well
where I might wish…
might well wish
for the iced fire of your kiss
only on water my lips, where your face…
where your face was reflected lovely,
not really there when I turned
to look behind at the emptying air
the emptying air.
This was Jeanette Winterson's pick, Echo, by Carol Ann Duffy.
I think I was searching for treasures or stones
in the clearest of pools
when your face…
when your face like the moon in a well
where I might wish…
might well wish
for the iced fire of your kiss
only on water my lips, where your face…
where your face was reflected lovely,
not really there when I turned
to look behind at the emptying air
the emptying air.
jueves, 29 de diciembre de 2011
Garfunkel's poem for Simon's 70th birthday
Art Garfunkel, the musician, has performed the poem he wrote for Simon, his long-time collaborator. He read it on Radio 4, where you can listen to it.
When I said: "You'll outlast me, you live more carefully."
He said: "Write out what you want to."
Ok, it's hard to say I knew him well,
He was enigmatic to himself.
Which of us was more aware?
Which the elder?
I was born November fifth.
He on October 13th - a few weeks premature, you following me?
He was born three weeks before me, my dear,
But he was a premature baby.
Were we both conceived at the same instant?
February 5th 1941, the dead middle of winter,
In the heart of World War Two
Was I born at the right time?
For 70 years his arm has been around my shoulder,
He's dazzled me with gifts.
I nurtured him in his youth.
He brought me into prominence.
I taught him to sing.
He connected my voice to the world.
I made him tall.
All of our personal belongings are intertwined.
We say it's exhausting to compete,
But we shine for each other.
It's still our favourite game.
It goes on, this embrace, whether I speak for him or he for me:
Love ruled our lives.
It rules the mourners,
And the winter of longevity.
When I said: "You'll outlast me, you live more carefully."
He said: "Write out what you want to."
Ok, it's hard to say I knew him well,
He was enigmatic to himself.
Which of us was more aware?
Which the elder?
I was born November fifth.
He on October 13th - a few weeks premature, you following me?
He was born three weeks before me, my dear,
But he was a premature baby.
Were we both conceived at the same instant?
February 5th 1941, the dead middle of winter,
In the heart of World War Two
Was I born at the right time?
For 70 years his arm has been around my shoulder,
He's dazzled me with gifts.
I nurtured him in his youth.
He brought me into prominence.
I taught him to sing.
He connected my voice to the world.
I made him tall.
All of our personal belongings are intertwined.
We say it's exhausting to compete,
But we shine for each other.
It's still our favourite game.
It goes on, this embrace, whether I speak for him or he for me:
Love ruled our lives.
It rules the mourners,
And the winter of longevity.
domingo, 1 de mayo de 2011
Mother Love poem
Today is Mother's Day in Spain. A few weeks ago the day was celebrated in the UK and to honour mothers, Gavin from the language school St George International published this poem... without missing out the opportunity to help us improve our phrasal verbs.
This is the poem Gavin published, but please do visit St George International to find out the meaning of the phrasal verbs in bold and to check on some other online activities and resources they offer English students.
Mothers are there to look after and care
For you
In your life
No matter how you fare
In life
In love
The truth is
She will always be there.
When you grow up
There are things that you hate
You think of yourself
And never appreciate
Her help
Her love
Things that make her great.
You’ll always remember
That she tells you to turn down your music
Get on with your little brother
And take care of him when he’s sick.
It’s annoying that sometimes
To have to put away your clothes
Even though it’s your room
And anything goes.
She shouts “throw away things
That you don’t need”
I shout back
That I just want her to leave.
You find out you can’t
Go out or stay up late
But she’ll clean up your mess
And have dinner ready by 8.
When I’m sad or lonely
A hug is always there
You can’t take back
The love that she shared.
The older you get
The wiser you become
Look forward to seeing her
And realise
In life
In love
That there’s no one quite
Like mum.
This is the poem Gavin published, but please do visit St George International to find out the meaning of the phrasal verbs in bold and to check on some other online activities and resources they offer English students.
Mothers are there to look after and care
For you
In your life
No matter how you fare
In life
In love
The truth is
She will always be there.
When you grow up
There are things that you hate
You think of yourself
And never appreciate
Her help
Her love
Things that make her great.
You’ll always remember
That she tells you to turn down your music
Get on with your little brother
And take care of him when he’s sick.
It’s annoying that sometimes
To have to put away your clothes
Even though it’s your room
And anything goes.
She shouts “throw away things
That you don’t need”
I shout back
That I just want her to leave.
You find out you can’t
Go out or stay up late
But she’ll clean up your mess
And have dinner ready by 8.
When I’m sad or lonely
A hug is always there
You can’t take back
The love that she shared.
The older you get
The wiser you become
Look forward to seeing her
And realise
In life
In love
That there’s no one quite
Like mum.
jueves, 13 de enero de 2011
Knocking and pulling
Knocking and pulling is a video version of a track from Touchable Dreams, by Jeremy Harmer and Steve Bingham.
The first adjective that comes to mind when you watch the video is beautiful.
Self-study idea:
Watch the video clip and note down or discuss your feelings after watching the video.
Then complete the gaps in the poem with the missing words.
I knock on the (1) ___ / She pulls me in
I stay not long (2) ___ / She dreams of (3) ____
I knock on the (1) ____ / She lets me in
I stay far too (4) ___ / She turns me out
I knock on the (1) ___
She (5) ___ me in / reluctantly
I walk in far too far / She turns me out
I knock on the (1) ___
Again / And again
She denies me (6) ___ / I stumble in
(7) ___ past her / She turns me out
Again / She turns me out
All this knocking and (8) ___ and turning out
Hey carpenter
(9) ___ me a coffin
A small coffin / of perfumed (10) ___
Our dream just (11) ___
H/T to Jason Renshaw. He offers some other activities with this poem on his blog and also presents a lesson plan for teachers.
Key:
1. door 2. enough 3. love 4. long 5. allows 6. entry 7. push 8. pulling 9. make 10. wood 11. died
The first adjective that comes to mind when you watch the video is beautiful.
Self-study idea:
Watch the video clip and note down or discuss your feelings after watching the video.
Then complete the gaps in the poem with the missing words.
I knock on the (1) ___ / She pulls me in
I stay not long (2) ___ / She dreams of (3) ____
I knock on the (1) ____ / She lets me in
I stay far too (4) ___ / She turns me out
I knock on the (1) ___
She (5) ___ me in / reluctantly
I walk in far too far / She turns me out
I knock on the (1) ___
Again / And again
She denies me (6) ___ / I stumble in
(7) ___ past her / She turns me out
Again / She turns me out
All this knocking and (8) ___ and turning out
Hey carpenter
(9) ___ me a coffin
A small coffin / of perfumed (10) ___
Our dream just (11) ___
H/T to Jason Renshaw. He offers some other activities with this poem on his blog and also presents a lesson plan for teachers.
Key:
1. door 2. enough 3. love 4. long 5. allows 6. entry 7. push 8. pulling 9. make 10. wood 11. died
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