07-06-2015, 06:14 AM
I can't really remember doing much poetry at school. I do know that at the age of 15 at school we read the two British War poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. I also know for certain that we read the poem 'Dulce et Decorum Est' by Wilfred Owen and yet it made no impact on me at all at the time. I'm not sure if it was because I was just 15 or that instead we had a rubbish teacher.
Either way I can't understand how at 15 I was not struck by the amazing yet horrific imagery used within the poem and the whole imapct and reality of war. About 15 years after that some not altogether sane man who I had only met about three times previously, somehow ended up sitting in my living room one day and out of nowhere recited word perfect 'Dulce et Decorum Est' with such amazing passion that bordered on slight madness in the way that only a true loony can manage. It was brilliant and it totally and utterly blew me away it was such a powerful experience and all of those words that said nothing to me as a 15 year old said so much now.
I still think it's an amazing poem now, in fact so amazing that for a teacher I think it would be extremely difficult to teach it and for it to have no significant impact on the people they are teaching too. So the moral of the story is to get some random theatrical mentally unstable yet scarily passionate lover of poetry to go into schools and scare the living crap out of them by reading with an intensity that redefines the meaning of intensity -- it worked for me.
The answer is always passion.
Either way I can't understand how at 15 I was not struck by the amazing yet horrific imagery used within the poem and the whole imapct and reality of war. About 15 years after that some not altogether sane man who I had only met about three times previously, somehow ended up sitting in my living room one day and out of nowhere recited word perfect 'Dulce et Decorum Est' with such amazing passion that bordered on slight madness in the way that only a true loony can manage. It was brilliant and it totally and utterly blew me away it was such a powerful experience and all of those words that said nothing to me as a 15 year old said so much now.
I still think it's an amazing poem now, in fact so amazing that for a teacher I think it would be extremely difficult to teach it and for it to have no significant impact on the people they are teaching too. So the moral of the story is to get some random theatrical mentally unstable yet scarily passionate lover of poetry to go into schools and scare the living crap out of them by reading with an intensity that redefines the meaning of intensity -- it worked for me.
The answer is always passion.
wae aye man ye radgie