Poetry saved me. Don’t deny it to next generation, pleads award-winner | The Guardian

Rhythm, humour and politics of verse give young people a voice, says poet. Making it optional at GCSE is a mistakeI was a bit of a troublemaker in secondary school. I got sent to “time out” for busying myself with trying to make my peers laugh. I got detention for skipping homework, and extra homework for skipping detention – basically any kind of soft rebellion you can think of, I gave it a go. Like many kids, I found formal education at times exhausting, uninspiring, and an interruption of more important things like who fancied whom.Although I was in the top set for many subjects, there were only a few classes that I felt genuine curiosity for, one of them being English literature. There were fewer absolutes. It felt like one of the only spaces in education where what I thought seemed to matter. Continue reading…

Rhythm, humour and politics of verse give young people a voice, says poet. Making it optional at GCSE is a mistake

I was a bit of a troublemaker in secondary school. I got sent to “time out” for busying myself with trying to make my peers laugh. I got detention for skipping homework, and extra homework for skipping detention – basically any kind of soft rebellion you can think of, I gave it a go. Like many kids, I found formal education at times exhausting, uninspiring, and an interruption of more important things like who fancied whom.

Although I was in the top set for many subjects, there were only a few classes that I felt genuine curiosity for, one of them being English literature. There were fewer absolutes. It felt like one of the only spaces in education where what I thought seemed to matter.

Continue reading…