Good evening readers. Apologies for the late post today, I've been out seeking inspiration from the wild.
When it comes to the theme of Mad Hatters I think we've about covered all the angles this week. After a triumphant evening last Friday at the Number 5 I think it is fair to say that the standard of poetry in the group is excelling and so, with me giving up rhyme for lent, I've found writing for today extremely difficult.
Instead then, I've got a poem I wrote last week- just before pancake day as it happens. It is a piece based loosely on the act of returning to a school you've been to before and seeing just how wild kids have become in the modern day. I've been doing a lot of this lately, at various schools across the town and, if I'm honest, I'm not sure that the direction is the one I would have chosen for some of these schools. They don't seem to be what they were perhaps, in those rose-tinted days of youth we all hold dear, although I'm sure that is just my reaction on being out of the system too long. Teachers still care just as much for students as they always did and schools strive for excellence on increasingly limited funds- there will always be holes in the net for people to fall through. Without further adieu then, a poem. Next week I'll be all out of fresh rhyming poetry so watch this space to see where the new direction will take me.
When it comes to the theme of Mad Hatters I think we've about covered all the angles this week. After a triumphant evening last Friday at the Number 5 I think it is fair to say that the standard of poetry in the group is excelling and so, with me giving up rhyme for lent, I've found writing for today extremely difficult.
Instead then, I've got a poem I wrote last week- just before pancake day as it happens. It is a piece based loosely on the act of returning to a school you've been to before and seeing just how wild kids have become in the modern day. I've been doing a lot of this lately, at various schools across the town and, if I'm honest, I'm not sure that the direction is the one I would have chosen for some of these schools. They don't seem to be what they were perhaps, in those rose-tinted days of youth we all hold dear, although I'm sure that is just my reaction on being out of the system too long. Teachers still care just as much for students as they always did and schools strive for excellence on increasingly limited funds- there will always be holes in the net for people to fall through. Without further adieu then, a poem. Next week I'll be all out of fresh rhyming poetry so watch this space to see where the new direction will take me.
Mad Hatters.
The kids dance around in the corridors
They're moonwalking a way out of class
They see no chance for staying on
They see no chance for staying on
So they're taking their childhoods back
They're bolting their way out over the field
Huddling in groups outside shops
They're throwing away an education
Before knowing what chances they've got
Thrown down a challenging gauntlet
Special measures to give them more chance
You can bring in marines for discipline
They're bolting their way out over the field
Huddling in groups outside shops
They're throwing away an education
Before knowing what chances they've got
Thrown down a challenging gauntlet
Special measures to give them more chance
You can bring in marines for discipline
But these children just want to dance
They're not asking for help with their homework
They're not turning up for their DTs
The rules left this place a long time ago
They're not asking for help with their homework
They're not turning up for their DTs
The rules left this place a long time ago
All those standards that helped to school me
Now I'm back and I feel I'm surveying
A great educational shift
I fail to see how academy status
Now I'm back and I feel I'm surveying
A great educational shift
I fail to see how academy status
Is giving these kids any lift
Some might put it all down to ambition
And claim home life pays such a big part
And claim home life pays such a big part
When a kid says his mum doesn't love him
It becomes a real matter of heart.
It becomes a real matter of heart.
So the next time they're talking academies
Just think how the morale there might change
Half these kids just need love, that is more than enough
Even bad teachers give that in spades
Teach them life isn't rounding off edges
Rather building on strengths that are there
Let's make confident people, all created equal
Because after this place, life's not fair.
S.
1 comments:
I like it, especially the line about rounding off edges. Sharp and loved over dull and forgotten any day. Your poem reminded me of Blake's Schoolboy:
I love to rise in a summer morn
When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the sky-lark sings with me.
O! what sweet company.
But to go to school in a summer morn,
O! it drives all joy away;
Under a cruel eye outworn,
The little ones spend the day
In sighing and dismay.
Ah! then at times I drooping sit,
And spend many an anxious hour,
Nor in my book can I take delight,
Nor sit in learning's bower,
Worn thro' with the dreary shower.
How can the bird that is born for joy
Sit in a cage and sing?
How can a child, when fears annoy,
But droop his tender wing,
And forget his youthful spring?
O! father & mother, if buds are nip'd
And blossoms blown away,
And if the tender plants are strip'd
Of their joy in the springing day,
By sorrow and care's dismay,
How shall the summer arise in joy,
Or the summer fruits appear?
Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy,
Or bless the mellowing year,
When the blasts of winter appear?
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