J.C. - you'll excuse me if I don't read too much into your observations. They just don't add up! Or is it me?
Personally...
I'm all for lathering the little beasts until they have "The Ancient Mariner" off word-perfect and can discuss its meaning!!!

Comment is about Should five-year-olds be made to learn poems by heart? (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

its okay shirley we'll all be skeletons one day and anger will be contained in several maggots bellys

Comment is about Anger (blog)

Original item by Shirley Smothers

I like the peaceful adventure described here, with its tinge of sadness/regret maybe?

Comment is about Gentler pleasures (blog)

Original item by Greg Freeman

I'd like to see what it was like before you edited it Win. And the exisiting text also. Very enigmatic! I like

"You are my pen
after the punishment."

especially.

Comment is about solemnity (blog)

Original item by Winston Plowes

There's always one nearby, Ann, (a smartarse). Where would we be without their expert guidance...tee hee! Nicely done, Ann. 8-)

Comment is about With peacocks at kew (blog)

Original item by Ann Foxglove

We think writing poems like this one Dave
will surely earn you a pair of wings.

Are you much cop on the harp by the way?

Lorra love-UZ-2.xx

Comment is about Conversations With An Angel (blog)

Original item by Dave Dunn

Gosh you changed the tack of this so well Ann..

enjoyed it..x

Comment is about With peacocks at kew (blog)

Original item by Ann Foxglove

Hi Richard, you might like this - http://www.writeoutloud.net/public/newsgroupview.php?NewsGroupsID=33&NewsThreadsID=1235#msgcontent_15002 Winston

Comment is about C Richard Miles (poet profile)

Original item by C Richard Miles

Nice one, Ann, enjoyed this. Totally unexpected ending which is good. xx

Comment is about With peacocks at kew (blog)

Original item by Ann Foxglove

I love it too! (And me other 'alf larfed...)

Comment is about Research (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

I love your poem about your father. It is just how we should remember our parents - if we were amongst the lucky ones to have parents like this. Your picture of your father is a great tribute to him.Well done and thank you for sharing it with us. xx

Comment is about For I will Praise My Father (blog)

To celebrate sport's soccer world cup
Every young man I fear has his flag up
In this prime football season
This request shows no reason -
The Doctor's, in fact, made a 'cock-up'.

Comment is about Research (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

What a great project. Thank you for all the hard work behind the scenes that brought it into being. Win

Comment is about Imagine, a poem in every shop (article)

Original item by Julian Jordon

With the limeric wot you have written
I am quite inexplicably smitten
Though the thought drives me frantic
Of their bedtime antics
By the limeric bug I've been bitten.

Comment is about Two Limericks for Janet and Phil (blog)

These words were created by taking one of my existing texts and translating it into French and back to English using Google Translate. Then into Greman and Irish. Then edited. (This process has been called Hyena poetry). Win

Reposted by request

Comment is about solemnity (blog)

Original item by Winston Plowes

In my teaching experience, children of all ages loved to do poetry 'classes'. They enjoyed learning about standard 'forms', reading poems appropriate to their age group and interests, either personally or aloud to a group, and then, especially writing their own ideas. It took remarkably little encouragement to set their creative fires alight. I still have 'samples' of their work that please me today to reread. Poetry should be part of the English curriculum, even for five-year-old's. But, seriously, so much depends on the teacher's personal enthusiasm, accurate knowledge and skills in motivation. Most teachers would benefit from some official 'poetry-teaching' seminars. Many of our current educators were deprived of poetry exposure in a vital, inclusive way.

I think the 'common' Nursery Rhymes still used today are basically a travesty of 'literature', never ever intended for children's consumption. Put them back into the historical, satirical, political arena where they might have been originally 'clever' to the sniggering adult populace.

Comment is about Should five-year-olds be made to learn poems by heart? (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

I love ths, Thom. So sweet and yet tragic. 8-)

Comment is about Only Moments (blog)

Original item by Tom

I coudnt have put it better myself. Right, I better get on with me ironing...

Comment is about School time (blog)

Excelent, Harry! My kind of voter and a crackingly good poem. 8-)

Comment is about THE FLOATING VOTER SONG (blog)

I like a good limerick...and they were two good limericks (or one double barrelled one?). Nicely done!

Comment is about Two Limericks for Janet and Phil (blog)

(re the last line)or do as we once did Harry-
dismantle the whole(Tiger cub)bike-
paint all the body parts hang 'em on't washing line to dry-sit looking at them nicely drying in the sun,wondering-how the flip we could get them all back together!

We always enjoy your sense of humour Harry.xx

Comment is about Two Limericks for Janet and Phil (blog)

I think this is a classic case of successive governments feeling like they should be saying something about education, or looking like they have something new to say. It brings to mind a lot of what Kenneth Steven said to me in the interview we did together.

If we were to look for positives in it all, at least it is putting poetry on the podium... If there is a primary school in England that isn't already giving poetry its fair slot, perhaps they'd have to think about it, for a moment, until it's all change again...

Comment is about Should five-year-olds be made to learn poems by heart? (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

Glyn I couldn't raise any enthusiasm for the trip, money cited as the reason in every case. So guilty do I feel about this that I have put it back on the front page in hope of sending freelancers to you!

Comment is about Bilingual Lit-fest in France, mostly gratuit! (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

Encourage? No! Suggest? Yes!
There's far too much encouragement of kids to read and write and add up and subtract. They should be allowed to decide for themselves.

Comment is about Should five-year-olds be made to learn poems by heart? (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

P.S. Years ago, I was enthralled by a trilogy
by the novelist Edith Pargeter (she wrote under
other names too):
The Heaven Tree
The Green Branch
The Scarlet Seed
...set in the Welsh Borders at the time of the
Norman Conquest and telling of a young stone-mason whose late father was well-regarded by a certain powerful Norman baron holding power there - and the ongoing conflict, personal
and in a wider context, between the son and the
old wolf of a baron. Ms Pargeter had a deserved reputation for her storytelling.
There are worth looking up in reprint or perhaps in a secondhand book shop or online?

Comment is about John Coopey (poet profile)

Original item by John Coopey

Greetings J.C. I'm obliged for the background details regarding your recent post. Cornwell seems to have done well by a period of our history barely touched upon - a sort of historical vacuum - and I can understand how attractive that can be in the hands of a good novelist. I recall his name connected with American Civil War stories too...a period that I delved into factually and at some length, once upon a time, so to speak.

Comment is about John Coopey (poet profile)

Original item by John Coopey

It's this competition that introduced me to the site. Unfortunately I missed the closing date but joined the site anyway. Now very glad I did and am anxious to get more of my work on my blogs.

Thanks for your help, Anne. You have been more helpful than you give yourself credit for! 8-)

Comment is about Imagine, a poem in every shop (article)

Original item by Julian Jordon

Really sorry to hear about your dad. And you are excruciatingly honest about your writing about him, which can never be a bad thing.

Comment is about For I will Praise My Father (blog)

Thank you for taking the time to read and for your comments. Laura, I know what you mean about the structure of this. It has a haunting familiarity for me too. Try as I might, though, I cannot identify the source of it. If you come up with any ideas, please let me know.

This is the third poem I have written since my father died and it is the first one I have been really happy with. Tomorrow will be only the third anniversary of his passing so I am tempted to conclude that, in the previous work, my grief and emotional turmoil somehow got in the way. Those pieces, it seems now, were less about him than my feelings of guilt and loss.

Comment is about For I will Praise My Father (blog)

Imposing middle class culture discriminates against the working class. However,depriving children of middle class culture is disadvantaging them. Damned if you do...

Comment is about Should five-year-olds be made to learn poems by heart? (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

Hi Jim - welcome to WOL. Just laughed at your profile poem - good ending! Good luck with Edinburgh. Hope you enjoy being a part of WOL :)

Comment is about Jim Higo (poet profile)

Original item by Jim Higo

Oh, this is why I never "socialise"! You've captured the atmosphere perfectly!

Comment is about Coffee Morning (blog)

Original item by fiona sinclair

A lovely poem Abigail - and a lovely tribute too.

Comment is about For I will Praise My Father (blog)

Out of this world...and so true. Its getting harder to keep up with all the new breeds and names.Bring back those days of old, when men were men and a dog was for life. 8-)

Comment is about designer dog (blog)

Original item by Ann Foxglove

Short and definately sweet. 8-)

Comment is about a cautionary tale... (blog)

Original item by Ann Foxglove

Ahhh, the inosense of childhood. Not a care in the world except crayons, a book and a tent to hide in. Bliss. 8-)

Comment is about tent (blog)

Original item by Ann Foxglove

Hi Anne.
I simply love this. The last section "other atoms wait to stir me in". what a wonderful way of looking at the end, if indeed end it is? the ultimate recycling! 8-)

Comment is about nothing... (blog)

Original item by Ann Foxglove

Hi Anne. I'm begining to feel my way around the site now and quite like what I see. One thing, however, puzzles me and search as I may, I cannot find an answer.
On my profile page, just below the samples, there is a counter. Would you happen to know what this is counting?
Sorry for bothering you.
Cheers D. P. 8-)

Comment is about Ann Foxglove (poet profile)

Original item by Ann Foxglove

JFK - that embraces the mood in fine style. Novelists of yesteryear wrote of such things in ways that would be seen now as quaint or perhaps as bland precursers to modern gay literature. Not quite the same thing...those glad, sad fleeting days of impressionable adolescence.

Comment is about GOLDEN BOY - a memory of schooldays hero-worship (blog)

Original item by M.C. Newberry

We know there are know-alls - but a knower
Is aware there's a grow-er and a show-er!!
Whether your Weeny is teeny - or just in-betweeny,
It's great when it lowers a lot slower!
UP with the English!!!

Comment is about Research (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

Love it!

Comment is about Research (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

And there were woodland hollows of green lawn
Where boys with windy hair and wine-wet lips
Danced on the sun-splashed grass; and hills of dawn
That looked out seaward to the distant ships.

Comment is about GOLDEN BOY - a memory of schooldays hero-worship (blog)

Original item by M.C. Newberry

Is this dominic???

Comment is about (photo)

Here here Isobel. I agree with all you say (on this occasion:)

Comment is about Should five-year-olds be made to learn poems by heart? (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

Hi Steve - maybe it was the photo that made you think of Deliverence (one of my fave films actually). I am really interested in your comment about conforming to norms - you may well have a point - it's a really interesting thought. Being totally untrained in poetic things (A level eng lit and the only poetry was WB Yeats - which I do like) I feel a bit cast adrift in the slipstream of what is best. I feel it takes more experience or confidence than I have, on occasion anyway, to decide for myself. My poems pop out on their own so when I have to make decisions and edit etc that is the hard part and I guess I would then listen to other voices.

Comment is about bus boy (blog)

Original item by Ann Foxglove

John,
Thinking of MC`s point about familiarity.

I think it works more effectively as it is.

These names about our savage past are rooted in our ancestral blood. The fact that they are unfamiliar (or rather half familiar) helps the poem.

Comment is about Arthur ap Uther - The Battle of Lugg Vale (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

I love this. I have been mulling over writing a poem about my dad, and have a bajillion notes written down that I have to sift through to pull out the poem.

I like the structure of this - what does it remind me of though?

These lines in particular stood out for me:

and again and again

for his blustering heart,

as big and as wide as the wind;

Comment is about For I will Praise My Father (blog)

Well said - and well put.

Comment is about For I will Praise My Father (blog)

Thanks Guys for your concerns.

Laura.
I'll try my best!

Patricia & Stefan.
I like your idea as well.

I'll give all your ideas a go.....maybe all at the same time time!

Mike

Comment is about THE WALL (blog)

Original item by Mike Hilton

Poetry is definitely already present in the school that I work in and children are encouraged to get up and have a go. That poetry is pitched at a level that primary children can enjoy though - with lots of repetition and rhyme. It's a great way of improving their confidence. We get the older kids to write stuff and perform to the younger kids - it's amazing how some shy kids can blossom. No-one should ever be forced to do something publicly if they don't want to though - not in primary school.

Traditional nursery rhymes are the best early introduction to poetry. It is surprising how many kids don't know the basic nursery rhymes we used to know before attending school though...

Comment is about Should five-year-olds be made to learn poems by heart? (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman