Penguin's Poems by Heart

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Those with warm memories are often ardent, lifelong advocates of learning a poem by heart, but their experience can be so embedded in particular relationships and contexts that it can be harder to tease out a more generalisable set of ideas about the value to children’s learning. What exactly are the benefits to children of learning a poem by heart? In ten years of running Poetry By Heart we’ve listened avidly to the stories and testament of many thousands of teachers, librarians and pupils who have taken part, in every school type and every corner of the country. Here are nine things we’ve learned. Achievement Between 2013 and 2016 Poetry By Heart was the principal educational initiative of The Poetry Archive, developed with The Full English and supported by the Department for Education. It was co-founded by Andrew Motion (Co- Director of The Poetry Archive) and Dr Julie Blake (Co-Director of The Full English and Education Director of The Poetry Archive) in February 2012. Since 2016 Poetry by Heart has been directed by The Full English. Tell people you’re asking children to learn a poem by heart and you get very mixed reactions. Some people will immediately start saying a few lines of verse they learned as a child; these lines usually come with a warm story, perhaps a memory of a family member who shared the poem with them or a particular teacher who brought poetry alive for them. Other people will tell a moving story of a loved relative able to recite a poem whole and intact through the ravages of dementia. A very small number of older people will shudder and remember being punished for faulty memorisation of a poem assigned to the class to learn. And others, like me, have no such stories: learning a poem by heart just wasn’t something we encountered as children, in school or at home.

The poems we learn when we’re young stay with us for the rest of our lives. They become embedded in our thinking, and when we bring them to mind, or to our lips, they remind us who we are as people, and the things we believe in. We call it learning by heart, and I think such learning can only make our hearts bigger and stronger.” Simon Armitage, Poet Laureate The competition opens on National Poetry Day, the first Thursday of October, and the closing date for competition entries is the end of March. Finalists are announced mid May with the grand finale taking place at the end of June. No one can learn a poem by heart for you. You have to create your own relationship with the poem, discover what memory tactics work best for you, and keep going when it seems too difficult. More managed curriculum activities don’t always have this scope and teachers are often delighted by the gains in learning independence. Language His first port of call is the Duchess of Cornwall, Patron of the Royal Society of Literature, who shares a passion for poetry, and more particularly poetry learned by heart. He also calls on Dame Judi Dench for advice on learning and some insights into how she sustains her reservoir of learned verse. Poetry By Heart is the poetry recitation competition for English schools. We are open to students in Key Stages 2-5 across a variety of competition categories including showcase (with the opportunity to enter self-written poetry or poems in other languages) and freestyle, where you can get really creative with different elements such as music, animation and more! There is also a special round for teachers and librarians to get involved.A Process in the Weather of the Heart’is a free-verse poem by Dylan Thomas. This poem taps on the theme of death. The dry and arid imagery of this piece makes a reader think of oblivion. After reading the text, it becomes clear that Thomas wrote this poem with a heavy heart, maybe lamenting his loved one’s death. In general, it is a topical poem about death that delves into the juncture when the heart gives up. Let’s have a look at the last few lines from the text: Love and the Gentle Heart’is a sonnet with an irregular rhyme scheme. This poem reveals the nature of love and heart. In the first two quatrains of this piece, Dante describes how love and heart are the same at the same time two distinct things. Whereas the concluding section talks about how virtue wins a woman’s heart and her love. Let’s have a look at the last few lines from Dante’s sonnet.

It is one of the most memorable poems of all time. In this beautiful piece, William Wordsworth describes how a simple rainbow mesmerizes his heart. Through its simplicity, it reveals some deeper concepts regarding spirituality and romanticism. This poem centers chiefly on a rainbow, a symbolic representation of nature and how the poet wishes to keep his childlike self alive. Here’s the full text of the poem:The Poetry Society is part of a consortium of poetry organisations supporting the delivery of Poetry By Heart. In 2023, we are piloting an outreach programme, sending poets into schools in Hull, Luton, Rochdale and Walsall to support pupils in learning and performing a poem. About Poetry By Heart Children consistently tell us that learning a poem is fun. That can mean many things but includes the freedom to choose a poem for themselves, the difficulty of the challenge, the risk and the dare of performing their poem, and the immediate gratification of the respect of their friends and relatives when they take that risk. Focus Memorably recited in the 1994 film Four Weddings and a Funeral – the success of which led to a whole new generation discovering Auden’s poetry – this elegy actually started life as a parody of public obituaries, although its sentiment can be taken as sincere as well, which shows Auden’s genius. The four quatrains of this poem make it the ideal length to commit to memory. In Poetry By Heart children choosing to learn a poem with others usually think they’re taking the easier option. In fact, speaking a poem with others demands cooperation, trust and coordination – and to do it well involves breathing together, being in the moment together and becoming part of something beyond yourself. Understanding

When you learn a poem by heart, it becomes part of you; anytime, anywhere, you can breathe it into being again. Children tell us about ‘my’ poem; our judges praise how well they have ‘owned’ the poem. If the poems we offer for learning are diverse and inclusive, this ownership offers a powerful form of participation in cultural life. Togetherness Housman (1859-1936) may not have revolutionised poetry in the way that some of the other names on this list did, but of all the poets included here, he is perhaps the one whose work most easily lends itself to being learned by heart. His fondness for regular rhyme schemes and verse forms, his plain and direct use of language, and his ability to articulate deeply felt sentiments in affecting and moving verse, all make Housman a join to learn, and carry around, ‘by heart’. Gyles Brandreth has, for many years, been familiar with the notion that learning something new every day is a sure-fire way of sustaining mental well-being. He's also got a hunch that if that new 'thing' is in verse form there are a raft of other positives to be had from the process of learning it heart. In this programme he garners advice on how it should best be done, what benefits it genuinely brings and what joys are to be had 'in vacant or in pensive mood' from the flow and facility of poetic verse recollected in tranquillity. Co-founder and director Julie Blakeof Poetry By Heart explains just why learning a poem by heart is so beneficial for children. Dr Julie Blake, FEA, FRSL(Hon), co-directs Poetry By Heart, the national poetry speaking competition for schools. She researches and writes about the history of poetry for children, creates digital and print anthologies of poems for children and young people, teaches poetry pedagogy and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of poetry in the school English curriculum.

Clips

The Poetry by Heart competition features a classic category where participants learn one pre-1914 and one post-1914 poem, and a freestyle category when they can choose any poem. A curated collection for them to choose from includes a wide range of poets, from Beowulf to contemporary poets such as Wayne Holloway-Smith, Roger Robinson and Romalyn Ante.

And then there's Kaiti Soultana, winner of the Poetry By Heart Competition in 2013, whose successfully committed a chunk of the early English poem Sir Garwain and the Green Knight to memory. He'll find out from her how the poetry learning initiative of the last few years has fared and whether his passionate enthusing will be well received. And then there's Michael Rosen, former Children's Laureate, who continues to encourage kids not only to read and learn poetry but to write it as well. The grand final of the competion, which is now in its fourth year, will be held in March 2016 for students in secondary schools and colleges. Like Housman, then, Frost favoured traditional verse forms but also a plain-spoken yet lyrical style. And although many people know the words in the final stanza of this poem, a good many people misinterpret them – and how well does anyone know the rest of ‘The Road Not Taken’? Why not commit this classic poem about opting for the road ‘less travelled’ to memory…Adults are regularly surprised by the facility children seem to have for learning by heart, with varied reasons proposed such as less fear, the pliability of young brains, and more time to devote to it. There’s a general consensus that once you’ve learned one thing it’s easier to learn more things, a poem being a very good place to begin. Oracy Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s ‘My Heart and I’depicts the distress of a newly widowed woman. The speaker reveals how she feels after her husband’s death. By repeating the word “tired” a number of times, she never lets readers forget her pain. She even admits that she would rather be dead than continue to live as she has to without her husband. The poems have been chosen by Morag Styles, retired professor of children’s poetry at the University of Cambridge and trustee of the Poetry Archive. Each one is accompanied by a suggested activity. This poem, which sees Housman’s ‘Shropshire Lad’ observing the cherry blossom on the trees and reflecting, as a young lad of twenty, that he has only fifty years left of his biblical three-score and ten, is a case in point: The Poetry By Heart resource for primary school children is designed to help pupils and teachers find poems they love, and enjoy them together through reading aloud and learning them by heart. It encourages playful discovery and serious fun.” Here are the poems selected: