In 1999, UNESCO (the United Nations Educational,
Scientific, and Cultural Organization) designated March 21 as World Poetry
Day with the aim of celebrating one of humanity’s most treasured forms of
cultural and linguistic expression and identity.
We've
designed and used this worksheet to help students be aware of why poetry matters.
March 21 marks World Poetry Day (WPD). Created by UNESCO in 1999, WPD encourages us to return
to the tradition of poetry readings and to place poetry within other literary
genres such as novels, short stories and theatre plays. Poetry shouldn't be
considered an outdated form of art, but "one which enables society as a
whole to regain and assert its identity". Poetry, in other words, has been
one of the most powerful forms of expression to convey our most
profound feelings and to inspire social change and progress.
To celebrate the greatness of poetry, watch this
stimulating talk by Stephen Hurt on why we need poetry.
Poetry, you will see, has many great uses yet one that
hasn't been mentioned by Stephen Hurt is its potential to help us perfect a skill that ESL learners find quite challenging: pronunciation.
Carla Dechant, one of our English teachers, has very kindly shared with us a Crazy English Pronunciation Poem and some related activities that will help you
practice the pronunciation of some of the most difficult spellings in English.
Click here to download the worksheet.
As you may know, Austrian author Peter Handke and
Poland's Olga Tokarczuk have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Two
winners were named, one for 2019 and one for 2018, because the prize was not
awarded last year.
I must admit I know nothing about Olga Tokarczuk's
life and work (gotta do some research!) but I did know a poem by Peter Handke
that it's well worth reading: "Song of Childhood", recited at the
beginning of Wim WendersWings of Desire (1987).
Read the poem and feel inspired by an exquisitely beautiful expression of the
time we were children.
Song of Childhood
By Peter Handke
When the child
was a child
It walked with
its arms swinging,
wanted the brook
to be a river,
the river to be
a torrent,
and this puddle
to be the sea.
When the child
was a child,
it didn’t know
that it was a child,
everything was
soulful,
and all souls
were one.
When the child
was a child,
it had no
opinion about anything,
had no habits,
it often sat
cross-legged,
took off
running,
had a cowlick in
its hair,
and made no
faces when photographed.
When the child
was a child,
It was the time
for these questions:
Why am I me, and
why not you?
Why am I here,
and why not there?
When did time
begin, and where does space end?
Is life under
the sun not just a dream?
Is what I see
and hear and smell
not just an
illusion of a world before the world?
Given the facts
of evil and people.
does evil really
exist?
How can it be
that I, who I am,
didn’t exist
before I came to be,
and that,
someday, I, who I am,
will no longer
be who I am?
When the child
was a child,
It choked on
spinach, on peas, on rice pudding,
and on steamed
cauliflower,
and eats all of
those now, and not just because it has to.
When the child
was a child,
it awoke once in
a strange bed,
and now does so
again and again.
Many people,
then, seemed beautiful,
and now only a
few do, by sheer luck.
It had
visualized a clear image of Paradise,
and now can at
most guess,
could not
conceive of nothingness,
and shudders
today at the thought.
When the child
was a child,
It played with
enthusiasm,
and, now, has
just as much excitement as then,
but only when it
concerns its work.
When the child
was a child,
It was enough
for it to eat an apple, … bread,
And so it is even
now.
When the child
was a child,
Berries filled
its hand as only berries do,
and do even now,
Fresh walnuts
made its tongue raw,
and do even now,
it had, on every
mountaintop,
the longing for
a higher mountain yet,
and in every
city,
the longing for
an even greater city,
and that is
still so,
It reached for
cherries in topmost branches of trees
It's National Poetry Day today in the UK and what
better way to celebrate it than by reading (and listening to) a poem in
English. Here's a suggestion from my colleague Patricia Ares and myself, who
were so privileged to attend Imtiaz Dharker's reading in Glasgow back in April
2017 thanks to our school's Erasmus + project.
