RHYME OR REASON?

 

And so it has come to pass: the curfew tolls the knell of parting day as poetry begins to sink below the Ofqual horizon, deferring to the prevailing winds of the dumb-it-down culture rather than aspiring to elevate and expand the outlook of the nation’s youth. In my experience, the vast majority of pupils engage with poetry - old heritage selections and modern. Not only do we respond to the magic evoked by the choice of imagery, sounds and rhythms, but the universal truths of human experience, emotions and ideas reverberate down the centuries. A poem can be a snapshot of an age, a window into human suffering, whether personal or communal; Blake’s chimney sweeper’s cry may no longer be heard in the streets of London, but injustice and poverty persist.

Poems often encapsulate something momentous, timeless or philosophical. Tennyson was famously driven to commemorate the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade after reading The Times newspaper report which is long forgotten, whereas the powerful imagery of cavalry thundering into the jaws of Death have impressed their galloping hoof prints on the imagination of generations. Regrettably, while war and conflict exist, the themes of honour, sacrifice and death remain relevant, as is the human need to express our darkest or most ecstatic moments in verse. At a dear friend’s funeral, it was most moving when her daughter and sister stood to read aloud poems they had written. The verse may not have perfectly scanned, but their honest love and raw grief was tangible. Perhaps they had turned to poetry as a way to express the out of the ordinary depth of their emotions, and the effort involved in crafting their poems honoured their loved one in the creation of something more elevated and beautiful than mundane prose; just as Ben Jonson did when he wrote On My First Sonne more than four hundred years earlier.

Academic ability is not a deciding factor when it comes to reading, writing or analysing poetry: in life-defining moments, we turn to poetry for solace, for inspiration, for insight, to shed light on ourselves. Of course, reading and responding to poetry on an emotional level is one thing, having to deconstruct it is another. Yet, even when the meaning/s of a metaphor may be challenging to unpick, we are always the richer for the effort and the great virtue of more complex, densely packed poems is the many possibilities for interpretation. Of course, those uphill lessons, chipping away at the layers of meaning in a seemingly obscure image, or trying to fine tune a sense of prosody, can be likened to peeling onions, but what euphoria when the mist clears!

Having taught the 19^th Century novel during the lockdown period, we are faced with the dilemma of consolidating and justifying that study time, or abandoning the Power and Conflict anthology. For me, it’s a conflict between heart and head.

Thus, the prospect of culling poetry from the GCSE Literature syllabus this year is a bitter pill to swallow. Certainly, studying and teaching it may induce hair loss, headaches, bruising around the temples, confusion or despair, yet the potential benefits make it all worthwhile. It seems only fitting to let poetry have the final say in these lines from Maurice Baring: I have loved words which lift the soul with wings; Words that are windows to eternal things. I’ve heard that a well-ventilated classroom is especially healthy, so whatever decision we make, let’s keep those windows open.