Mrs+Abena

Welcome to my page. You might not believe it, but when I thought about having to teach this poetry unit, I was a bit stuck because many of the group said that you weren't interested in poetry **//at all//!** It's not something that I read every day either, so I had to try and find some poems that might appeal to you. Where to start when there is zero interest? I then thought about how we encounter poetry every day in the language we use, read and hear and started to read poems every day for weeks. When I started doing this, I came across a lot of new stuff, and realised that I really do enjoy poetry. However, there is a BUT. Poetry is like any art form such as paintings, novels, dancing, music etc. There will always be some that you like or love, and some that you just don't 'get'. The following is a selection of poems that I 'get' and enjoy for different reasons. Let me know what you think!

PS I really believe that the most appealing way to experience poetry is through sound, so I've tried to include audio or video versions of the poems.


 * 19.01.11**

I think we've come a long way as a group since the start of this project. Many of you have now changed your ideas about poetry as stale and dull, and not only that - you've created some brilliant poems yourselves. Your enthusiasm and support for having a poetry showcase for primary in the theatre shows me that you have really gotten to grips with this unit. I am really proud of you all. WELL DONE and thanks for showing me that poetry really can be appreciated by everyone!

Who doesn't like Benjamin Zephaniah ? His poetry is often political, but never impossible to understand. Some of it is humourous with a serious message like this first poem, which is perhaps good for the new year, just after Christmas...

My comments:
 * media type="youtube" key="LlxzSlMzbSs?fs=1" height="268" width="336"

Zephaniah speaks using a Carribean dialect but it is still not difficult to follow what he says. You can see from the video that his poetry is produced to be performed, not simply read from the page.

The poem seems like nonsense on the surface, but Zephaniah is a vegan, so the message is clear - leave the turkeys alone! Don't be 'greedy' and 'waste' things and maybe in this way we can all be better people. ||  || 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
 * Talking Turkeys!! **
 * Benjamin Zephaniah **

**Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas**  **Cos turkeys jus wanna hav fun**  **Turkeys are cool, an turkeys are wicked**  **An every turkey has a Mum.**  **Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas,**  **Don't eat it, keep it alive,**  **It could be yu mate an not on yu plate**  **Say, Yo! Turkey I'm on your side.**

 **I got lots of friends who are turkeys**  **An all of dem fear christmas time,**  **Dey say 'Benj man, eh, I wanna enjoy it,**  **But dose humans destroyed it** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **An humans are out of dere mind,** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **Yeah, I got lots of friends who are turkeys** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **Dey all hav a right to a life,** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **Not to be caged up an genetically made up** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **By any farmer an his wife.**

<span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **Turkeys jus wanna play reggae** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **Turkeys jus wanna hip-hop** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **Havey you ever seen a nice young turkey saying,** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **'I cannot wait for de chop'?** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **Turkeys like getting presents, dey wanna watch christmas TV,** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **Turkeys hav brains an turkeys feel pain** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **In many ways like yu an me.**

<span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **I once knew a turkey His name was Turkey** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **He said 'Benji explain to me please,** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **Who put de turkey in christmas** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **An what happens to christmas trees?'** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **I said, 'I am not too sure Turkey** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **But it's nothing to do wid Christ Mass** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **Humans get greedy and waste more dan need be** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **An business men mek loadsa cash.'**

<span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **So, be nice to yu turkey dis christmas** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **Invite dem indoors fe sum greens** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **Let dem eat cake an let dem partake** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **In a plate of organic grown beans,** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **Be nice to yu turkey dis christmas** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **An spare dem de cut of de knife,** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **Join Turkeys United an dey'll be delighted** <span style="color: #330033; font-family: Arial,Helvetica;"> **An yu will mek new friends 'FOR LIFE'.** ||

Carol Ann Duffy has been writing for a long time and has been the official poet of England. She is studied a lot at GCSE level, but these are 2 of her poems that I really like, because when I read or listen to them I really feel how bored and frustrated these characters are.

Carol Ann Duffy
 * Education for Leisure

Today I am going to kill something. Anything. I have had enough of being ignored and today I am going to play God. It is an ordinary day, a sort of grey with boredom stirring in the streets.

I squash a fly against the window with my thumb. We did that at school. Shakespeare. It was in another language and now the fly is in another language. I breathe out talent on the glass to write my name.

I am a genius. I could be anything at all, with half the chance. But today I am going to change the world. Something’s world. The cat avoids me. The cat knows I am a genius, and has hidden itself.

I pour the goldfish down the bog. I pull the chain. I see that it is good. The budgie is panicking.

Once a fortnight, I walk the two miles into town for signing on. They don’t appreciate my autograph.

There is nothing left to kill. I dial the radio and tell the man he’s talking to a superstar. He cuts me off. I get our bread-knife and go out. The pavements glitter suddenly. I touch your arm.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 || media type="youtube" key="po0czXogqBk?fs=1" height="268" width="336" My comments: In this first poem, the character is unemployed ("signing on" in the UK means that you get money from the government to live because you have no job) and seems quite young as he talks about school. He has probably been kicked out of school and I feel that he's really had enough of life altogether. It's strange that he calls himself a 'genius' rather than a murderer, and there is nothing amusing about how he treats the animals around him. He is clearly disturbed, but I have definitely felt that utter boredom in the past, and that's the part I can relate to. The last 2 lines raise a lot of questions for me. What does he intend to do with the knife? Why a 'bread' knife? The fact that he says 'our bread-knife' again makes me think he lives at home with his parents, as it doesn't seem like he's in a relationship. And who is the 'you' behind 'your arm'? Does he intend to hurt this person or ask this person for help. I don't know, but I like the way it leaves me guessing because I can imagine lots of possibilities. ||


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Stealing Carol Ann Duffy

The most unusual thing I ever stole? A snowman. Midnight. He looked magnificent; a tall, white mute beneath the winter moon. I wanted him, a mate with a mind as cold as the slice of ice within my own brain. I started with the head.

Better off dead than giving in, not taking what you want. He weighed a ton; his torso, frozen stiff, hugged to my chest, a fierce chill piercing my gut. Part of the thrill was knowing that children would cry in the morning. Life's tough.

Sometimes I steal things I don't need. I joy-ride cars to nowhere, break into houses just to have a look. I'm a mucky ghost, leave a mess, maybe pinch a camera. I watch my gloved hand twisting the doorknob. A stranger's bedroom. Mirrors. I sigh like this - Aah.

It took some time. Reassembled in the yard, he didn't look the same. I took a run and booted him. Again. Again. My breath ripped out in rags. It seems daft now. Then I was standing alone among lumps of snow, sick of the world.

Boredom. Mostly I'm so bored I could eat myself.

One time, I stole a guitar and thought I might learn to play. I nicked a bust of Shakespeare once, flogged it, but the snowman was the strangest.

You don't understand a word I'm saying, do you? || 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

My comments:

This poem again has a character who is utterly bored. I think my favourite line of poetry ever is in this poem - 'I'm so bored I could eat myself'. How great is that? I mean, how bored do you have to be to even have that idea? It's a great line for getting across how the character feels.

Again, like the poem before, the person seems to be a bit of a delinquint (naughty teen?) and likes vandalising for the sake of it.

I could go on forever about why I like this poem, but I won't. Instead, I'll finish by saying that the last line of the poem sums it up for me. Here is a person who thinks that the world is against them, so they try to be cruel in the world. They feel that nobody understands them, but the irony is that if you appreciate this poem's emotions, then there is someone who sympathises. It is a pointless loneliness and so typically (British) teenage in its angst.

(I think if you're from or have lived in the UK and encountered teens, you've probably met someone like the character in the poem - I definitely have...many times.) ||

My next choice is from Maya Angelou. I love this poem because it is about someone being beaten down but refusing to give up. Although the poem could apply to something like racism or religious prejudice, I think it can also be about when life just gets on top of you and you feel like it's all too much...and then you realise that you are stronger than the size of the problem and get on with life.

One of my favourite parts is:

"I <span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise  I rise <span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">I rise."

I really like that part, not because it is about slavery, but because it is about a hope that is held for generations finally being realised. Imagine the hope of thousands of people and one day it comes true. That kind of joy is reflected when she repeats to the end of the poem 'I rise, I rise, I rise.' WIth no punctuation at the end of the line, we can imagine that nothing will ever stop her.

She has read this quite a few times on Youtube, so have a look and see what you think when she reads it.

<span style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 20px; line-height: 30px;">**Still I Rise** With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise.
 * ||  || You may write me down in history

Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? 'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops. Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard 'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame I rise Up from a past that's rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

Maya Angelou || 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

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