National Poetry DayThursday 7th October

Teachers favourite

poemsListed below are the names of teachers who nominated their favourite poem(s).

Can you discover which teacher likes which poem??

Mr FoleyMr BrownMs SorohanMr GaleMs GreenhoughMr AdamsMr ScicinskiMrs DaleMiss CorreiaMrs HayesMiss DroughtMiss DibbMr Watts

Mr ThomasMs RavenscroftMr OliverMr HealdMs ShawMr BrooksMiss AllenMr SimpsonMr CleughMs Euvrard Mr McBratneyMr Nalewajko

Warning!

One poem has been nominated by three teachers

&

One teacher has nominated two poems!

IF..... By Rudyard Kipling

IF you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,But make allowance for their doubting too;If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and DisasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spokenTwisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginningsAnd never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinewTo serve your turn long after they are gone,And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,

if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minuteWith sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black.Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

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My Spelling By Philomena Ott

You can call my writing illegibleAnd the grammar quite obscene

But when my pen hits paperI know just what I mean

My punctuation's randomAnd my meaning's hard to see

But my spelling is uniqueAnd has originality

It's often called DyslexiaBut I don't think that's true

I've just a good imagination

And a different brain from youAddress to a Haggis By Robert Burns

 Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!Aboon them a' ye tak your place,

Painch, tripe, or thairm:Weel are ye wordy of a grace

As lang's my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,Your hurdies like a distant hill,

Your pin wad help to mend a millIn time o' need,

While thro' your pores the dews distilLike amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour dight,An' cut ye up wi' ready slight,

Trenching your gushing entrails brightLike onie ditch;

And then, O what a glorious sight,Warm-reekin, rich!

(The English translation is available in the library)

Late Fragment by Raymond Carver

And did you get whatyou wanted from this life, even so?

I did.And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myselfbeloved on the earth.

Why this poem? It is beautiful in its simplicity. He sums up complex human emotions in a sparse style getting to the core of the heart. Even the structure is simple and yet this belies the complexity of its craft. To write in such a striped down manner requires more skill than being over complicated I feel. I hope when I reach the end stage of my life that I can say that yes I did get what I wanted from life and yes it was to have felt beloved.

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Eu Quero Amar By Flor Bela Espanca

Eu quero amar, amar perdidamente! Amar só por amar: Aqui... além...

Mais Este e Aquele, o Outro e toda a gente... Amar! Amar! E não amar ninguém!

Recordar? Esquecer? Indiferente! Prender ou desprender? É mal? É bem? Quem disser que se pode amar alguém Durante a vida inteira é porque mente!

Há uma primavera em cada vida: É preciso cantá-la assim florida,

Pois se Deus nos deu voz, foi pra cantar!

E se um dia hei-de ser pó, cinza e nada Que seja a minha noite uma alvorada,

Que me saiba perder ... pra me encontrar...

Why? The teacher said: My favourite poet is Flor Bela Espanca, a Portuguese feminist woman who committed suicide.  My favourite poem that she created is about free love.  It is very famous in Portugal. 

Pi By Wislawa Szymborska

The admirable number pi: three point one four one.

All the following digits are also initial, five nine two because it never ends.

It can't be comprehended six five three five at a glance, eight nine by calculation,

seven nine or imagination, not even three two three eight by wit, that is, by comparison

four six to anything else two six four three in the world.

The longest snake on earth calls it quits at about forty feet. Likewise, snakes of myth and legend, though they may hold out a bit longer.

The pageant of digits comprising the number pi doesn't stop at the page's edge.

It goes on across the table, through the air, over a wall, a leaf, a bird's nest, clouds, straight into the sky,

through all the bottomless, bloated heavens. Oh how brief - a mouse tail, a pigtail - is the tail of a comet!

How feeble the star's ray, bent by bumping up against space! While here we have two three fifteen three hundred nineteen

my phone number your shirt size the year nineteen hundred and seventy-three the sixth floor

the number of inhabitants sixty-five cents hip measurement two fingers a charade, a code,

in which we find hail to thee, blithe spirit, bird thou never wert alongside ladies and gentlemen, no cause for alarm,

as well as heaven and earth shall pass away, but not the number pi, oh no, nothing doing,

it keeps right on with its rather remarkable five, its uncommonly fine eight,

its far from final seven, nudging, always nudging a sluggish eternity

to continue….

Leisure By William Henry Davies

What is this life if, full of care,We have no time to stand and stare.No time to stand beneath the boughsAnd stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth canEnrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,We have no time to stand and stare.

I chose two poems, the first was a little more mathematical but I think this is my favourite……

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Sonnet 14: Sonnets from the Portuguese: By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If thou must love me, let it be for noughtExcept for love's sake only. Do not say

'I love her for her smile... her look... her wayOf speaking gently, ... for a trick of thought

That falls in well with mine, and certes broughtA sense of pleasant ease on such a day' -

For these things in themselves, Beloved, mayBe changed, or change for thee, - and love, so wrought,

May be unwrought so. Neither love me forThine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry, -

A creature might forget to weep, who boreThy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!But love me for love's sake, that evermore

Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.

Not an obvious connection with the teacher, but it was read at his wedding …….

The Outside Half Factoryby The People’s Poet of Wales - Max Boyce

I'll tell you all a story, 'tis a strange and a weird tale:Of a factory in my valley, not fed by road or rail.

It's built beneath the mountain, beneath the coal and clay. It's where we make the outside-halves, that'll play for Wales one day.

Down by the council houses, where on a quiet dayYou can hear the giant engines digging up the clay.

No naked lights or matches where the raw material's foundIn the four-foot seams of outside-halves, two miles below the ground.

We've camouflaged the mouth with stones, from Bradford Northern spiesFrom plastic 'E-Type' Englishmen with promise in their eyes.

And we've boarded up the entrance for the way must not be shown;And we'll tell them all to bog off and make their very own!

My Dad works down in arms and legs where production's running high.It's he that checks the wooden moulds and stacks them forty high.But he's had some rejects lately, 'cos there's such a big demand;

So he sells them to the English clubs, and stamps them 'second-hand'.

It's there where Harry Dampers works, it's where the money's best,But now his health is failing and the dust lies on his chest.

But he'll get his compensation though his health's gone off the railsWhen he sees that finished product score the winning try for Wales.

(Adapted from the original)

A Prayer for all my countrymen by Guy Butler

Though now few eyes Can see beyond

Our tragic times complexities Dear God ordain

Such deeds be done Such words be said That men will praise

Your image yet When all these terrors

And hates are dead

Through rotting days Beaten, broken,

Some stayed pure; Others learnt how

To grin and endure And here and there

A heart stayed warm A head grew clear.

Why? One of my favourite (I could never pick just one!) poems is a very simple poem by Guy Butler entitled 'A prayer for all my countrymen'. It was written in what truly were dark times in my country, South Africa; eighty five percent of the country were oppressed and not allowed to vote, young boys were forced into National Service and a war in Angola very few supported and children were rioting about the awful conditions in schools. But Butler's message is simple and powerful - an appeal to God that we retain our dignity and strength through such awful times so that what we remember is actually our essential humanity in response to such atrocities. I like that - it's rather empowering. 

JABBERWOCKY By Lewis Carroll

(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,  And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun  The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:  Long time the manxome foe he sought --

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,  And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,  The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,  And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through  The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head  He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?  Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'  He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,  And the mome raths outgrabe.

Why? "Snicker-snack" is a very good description of a compound attack in fencing. Love it.

Ode on a Grecian Urn by John KeatsTHOU still unravish'd bride of quietness,

Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape

Of deities or mortals, or of both,In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheardAre sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leaveThy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shedYour leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearièd,For ever piping songs for ever new;

More happy love! more happy, happy love!For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above,That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

…….. But, really I prefer the Odyssey (a poem in the original ancient Greek)

The Highwayman By Alfred Noyes

The wind was a torrent of darkness upon the gusty trees, The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,

The road was a ribbon of moonlight looping the purple moor, And the highwayman came riding--

Riding--riding-- The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door.

He'd a French cocked hat on his forehead, and a bunch of lace at his chin; He'd a coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of fine doe-skin. They fitted with never a wrinkle; his boots were up to his thigh!

And he rode with a jeweled twinkle-- His rapier hilt a-twinkle--

His pistol butts a-twinkle, under the jeweled sky.

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard, He tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred,

He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there But the landlord's black-eyed daughter--

Bess, the landlord's daughter-- Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

Dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked Where Tim, the ostler listened--his face was white and peaked--

His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay, But he loved the landlord's daughter-- The landlord's black-eyed daughter;

Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say:

Why this poem - I love dramatic poems ….

When I Am Old. By Jenny Joseph

When I am an old woman I shall wear purpleWith a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me,

And I shall spend my pensionon brandy and summer gloves

And satin sandals,and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired,And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells,

And run my stick along the public railings,And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rainAnd pick the flowers in other people's gardens,

And learn to spit.You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat,

And eat three pounds of sausages at a go,Or only bread and pickle for a week,

And hoard pens and pencils and beer matsand things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry,And pay our rent and not swear in the street,

And set a good example for the children.We will have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practise a little now?So people who know me

are not too shocked and surprised,When suddenly I am old

and start to wear purple!

Two teachers chose this as their favourite! – But which two?

No Second Troy By W B Yeats

Why should I blame her that she filled my daysWith misery, or that she would of late

Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,Or hurled the little streets upon the great,

Had they but courage equal to desire?What could have made her peaceful with a mind

That nobleness made simple as a fire,With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind

That is not natural in an age like this,Being high and solitary and most stern?

Why, what could she have done, being as she is?Was there another Troy for her to burn?

No obvious link between teacher and poem, although the author is Irish ……….

The great advantage of being alive by e. e. cummings

the great advantage of being alive(instead of undying) is not so much

that mind no more can disprove than provewhat heart may feel and soul may touch--the great (my darling) happens to bethat love are in we, that love are in we

and here is a secret they never will sharefor whom create is less than have

or one times one than when times where--that we are in love, that we are in love:

with us they've nothing times nothing to do(for love are in we am in i are in you)

this world (as timorous itsters allto call their cowardice quite agree)

shall never discover our touch and feel--for love are in we are in love are in we;for you are and i am and we are (aboveand under all possible worlds )in love

a billion brains may coax undeathfrom fancied fact and spaceful time--no heart can leap, no soul can breathe

but by the sizeless truth of a dreamwhose sleep is the sky and the earth and the sea.

For love are in you am in i are in we

Message with this poem: I am a bit ashamed to be choosing one with such a shocking lack of punctuation……

Ozymandias By Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique landWho said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear --"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"Nothing beside remains. Round the decayOf that colossal wreck, boundless and bareThe lone and level sands stretch far away.'

Clue: this one came to me on a yellow ‘post-it’ note …….__________________________________________________________________________

The dancing cabman By J. B. MortonAlone on the lawn

The cabman dances In the dew of dawn

he kicks and prances

His bowler is set on his bullet head

for his boots are wet and his aunt is dead

There on the lawn As the light advances,

On the tide of the dawn, The cabman dances.

Swift and strong as a garden roller he dances along in his little bowler

skimming the lawn with royal grace the dew of dawn

on his great red face

To fairy flutes as the light advances in square black boots the cabman dances.

South of my Days By Judith Wright

South of my days' circle, part of my blood's country, rises that tableland, high delicate outline of bony slopes wincing under the winter,

low trees, blue-leaved and olive, outcropping granite- clean, lean, hungry country. The creek's leaf-silenced,

willow choked, the slope a tangle of medlar and crabapple branching over and under, blotched with a green lichen;

and the old cottage lurches in for shelter.

O cold the black-frost night. the walls draw in to the warmth and the old roof cracks its joints; the slung kettle

hisses a leak on the fire. Hardly to be believed that summer will turn up again some day in a wave of rambler-roses,

thrust it's hot face in here to tell another yarn- a story old Dan can spin into a blanket against the winter.

seventy years of stories he clutches round his bones, seventy years are hived in him like old honey.

During that year, Charleville to the Hunter, nineteen-one it was, and the drought beginning;

sixty head left at the McIntyre, the mud round them hardened like iron; and the yellow boy died

in the sulky ahead with the gear, but the horse went on, stopped at Sandy Camp and waited in the evening. It was the flies we seen first, swarming like bees.

Came to the Hunter, three hundred head of a thousand- cruel to keep them alive - and the river was dust.

Or mustering up in the Bogongs in the autumn when the blizzards came early. Brought them down;

down, what aren't there yet. Or driving for Cobb's on the run up from Tamworth-Thunderbolt at the top of Hungry Hill,

and I give him a wink. I wouoldn't wait long, Fred, not if I was you. The troopers are just behind,

coming for that job at the Hillgrove. He went like a luny, him on his big black horse.

Ode To Autumn By John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and blessWith fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shellsWith a sweet kernel; to set budding more,And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hookSpares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keepSteady thy laden head across a brook;Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloftOr sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble softThe red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Strictly speaking, not a teacher, but very keen on marketing ……

As if I asked a common alms By Emily Dickenson

“As if I asked a common alms, and in my wand’ring handA stranger pressed a kingdom, and I bewildered stand.

As if I asked the Orient, had it for me a morn

And it should life the purple gates, and shatter me with dawn”

Whoso List to Hunt, I know where is a hind by Sir Thomas Wyatt

(about his secret love for Anne Boleyn)

HOSO list to hunt ? I know where is an         hind !   But as for me, alas !  I may no more,

The vain travail hath wearied me so sore ;I am of them that furthest come behind.Yet may I by no means my wearied mindDraw from the deer ; but as she fleeth aforeFainting I follow ; I leave off therefore,Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubtAs well as I, may spend his time in vain !And graven with diamonds in letters plain,There is written her fair neck round about ;    ' Noli me tangere ; for Cæsar's I am,And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.'

Why? Just one of several historical poems I like.

An extract from Rime of the Ancient Marinerby Samuel Taylor Coleridge

It is an ancient Mariner,And he stoppeth one of three.

'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

The bridegroom's doors are opened wide,And I am next of kin;

The guests are met, the feast is set:Mayst hear the merry din.'

He holds him with his skinny hand,"There was a ship," quoth he.

'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!'Eftsoons his hand dropped he.

He holds him with his glittering eye— The Wedding-Guest stood still,

And listens like a three years' child:The Mariner hath his will.

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:He cannot choose but hear;

And thus spake on that ancient man,The bright-eyed Mariner.

"The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,Merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill,Below the lighthouse top.

The sun came up upon the left,Out of the sea came he!

And he shone bright, and on the rightWent down into the sea.

….this poem continues for many more verses …………….

TEACHERSFAVOURITES