"Poetry has never been written with the intention of making young people irritated, bored, anxious or humiliated, and yet the consequence of the test and exam system often does just that." -Michael Rosen in The Guardian
...and I followed it to the entire article: Michael Rosen's suggestions for a poetry-friendly classroom
...which reminded me of these oft-quoted lines from a Billy Collins poem:
"But all they want to do...and then I found this at his website:
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it."
(Full text here: Introduction to Poetry)
...instructions on how to read poems on your iPod. (Yes, that's read, not listen.) You can store up to 1000 poems!
I think "young people" (and old) might have fun with this. And I don't think it would be torturing the poems too much. What do you think? Anybody tried this?
...but there's more. I Googled "poem in my pocket" to find some low-tech ways of carrying poems around, which led me to an alternate universe:
Poetry Thursday
It looks like this blogging project ended in August, but the archives are stuffed with good ideas and great links. Check out their "(completely and totally optional) ideas" category for inspirations like these: "the one with all the rules, Part II" where the players leave an original line of poetry in the comment section and the other players choose one and write a poem from it! Cool, huh?
So, in the spirit of one thing leads to another: leave a line of an original poem in the comments here, and if you wish, take one away to play with. (If you do write a poem using one of the lines for a future Poetry Friday, it would be nice to link back to the person whose line inspired it.)
I'll start you off with a line that I love, but have never been able to use in a poem:
She had the knack of folding paper so that it reflected light...
Poetry Friday is hosted this week by whimsy.
