What do you wish you'd learned at school about poetry?

[abu nuwas]

That you'e probably never going to get good at it, so you might as well cuss like a harlot if you're not going to rhyme.

Or if you ARE going to rhyme, actually. Poetry is all about language...

James, those are all good ideas and all things I teach my students -- the trouble with this particular workshop was that it was trying to teach a bunch of teachers to teach poetry when they'd been taught poetry badly themselves. The golden rule for teaching anything is enthusiasm and it's hard to be enthusiastic about something your English teachers ruined for you.

For the record, the workshop went down very well (it was in September). Though I despaired at the ignorance of some participants, the majority have taken a few lessons on board and are delivering poetry as a regular part of their lessons. My own students don't like writing poetry that doesn't rhyme, so I've killed their couplets, taught them how meter works and have them writing sonnets and rondeaux as part of their assessment portfolios. Fortunately, thanks to rap/hiphop they have an excellent feel for rhythm that was easily translated into iambic pentameter.

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PS. I would never invite a student of mine to this forum, I'm sorry to say -- they're 15 and far too impressionable

I am glad it went well. I fancy you have confused people here with two groups -- your own challenged 15 year olds, and the teachers; but perhaps there is not such a great gulf between them.

For what it is worth, I do not think I did suffer significantly at the hands of teachers. I believe that poetry read aloud by the teacher, or Richard Burton et al with strong stresses, is invaluable . I notice that people who have not imbibed meter as children, find it very difficult to do later on. One meter well-understood is, I sense, sufficient to enable others to be picked up. In general, I think children should be stretched, and would expect them to grasp the Rubaiyat or Ancient Mariner,with the teacher there to guide and explain. The colorful language combined with the meter, I think, has every chance of making some of it sink in, and remain.

I wonder if the same would help introduce many teachers who have not been much involved with poetry, but who are supposed to teach it.

Most important: inspire, inspire, inspire.