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Yeah, a night sleep is much more important than that for tomorrow will be another day of hard works. Good luck for her battle on poetry day!

Yes it&#39;s goodbye from us,<br />But don&#39;t get all terse,<br />There&#39;s no need to panic,<br />And no need to curse,<br />Just come and play words,<br />At our blog - FunEverse!<br /><br />Coming soon to a computer near you...<br />

Lovely finish Kathryn! <br />

You guys, that was a brilliant series! Got up the courage to <a href="http://www.candygourlay.com/2012/10/relearning-colour-of-me-poem-for.html" rel="nofollow">post a poem on my author blog</a>. Thank you. Till next National Poetry Day!

They are so talented! You are going to laugh your socks off when you read the first funEverse blog. Honestly, you will. Really.

I read your poem Candy, it was lovely and really thought provoking xxx

Thanks so much, George!

There once was a poet called Kathryn<br />Who was practically dying of flu<br />But she stoically reached for the aspirin<br />And dropped in to say How d&#39;you do.<br /> <br />Hello poets! Since the day I wrote &#39;I am a volcanoe&#39; I&#39;ve known I was destined to be a poet. Indeed, since that edition of &#39;St Judes Primary School Project On Italy&#39; went out of print some years ago,

I would love to read that! <br /><br />Sorry to hear you have the flu,<br />Am sending lots of hugs to you.

I&#39;ve said in once, and I&#39;ll say it again, it&#39;s ALWAYS appropriate for your main character to get stuck in a sumo&#39;s bum crack. Wouldn&#39;t you agree Rebecca?

Three cheers for our poor stricken Kathryn<br />In bed with the worst dreaded flu<br />She is truly a poetic trooper,<br />Writing poems between her Ah-chooooooos!<br /><br />Hope you feel better soon. <br />Hi to you all. <br />Very excited to see all the poems going up on the blog. <br />: )

Thanks guys. Really looking forward to following the website and let me know how our school can get involved. Sounds great. Really enjoyed reading your poems! And Rebecca, I blame Robert Frost and Dr Seuss for my love of rhymes, too (and a few others). I&#39;ve got &#39;Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening&#39; typed out and up in my office next to my desk so I can read it whenever I like.

I&#39;ll get in touch after our first school has appeared Clare because I&#39;ll have a better idea of how things should go by then. The first one&#39;s a bit of an experiment.

I now live in fear that we may encourage each other into an excess of daftness.

Well, that should make her feel better Mo. <br />I&#39;m finding it exciting too, can&#39;t wait until we go &#39;properly public!&#39;

Hurrah for the FunEverse!

Definitely, George! Like minds! I&#39;m surprised more writers haven&#39;t thought of using a scene like this in their work.

You&#39;re a writer after my own heart, Clare--love that poem!

So impressed, rhyming is haaaard. I think i must have missed Funeverse 1 so off to check it out.

Primary School teachers' noses are pressed so closely to the grindstone, Lucy, they scarcely have time to breathe. Give them a break!

Brian, they should be able to name poets just because they are human beings. It's not as though (horror) they were asked to READ any.

Spellsong is a lovely poem, Lucy.

Anne, that's all they hear all day every day. They should do this, they should do that. So now writers are joining the Daily Mail in throwing brickbats. Great.

I'd be more disturbed if English teachers were named as not having heard of poets. Maths teachers is a different matter. But I am surprised about the primary school teachers, don't they use poetry, and aren't they all-rounders? On the other hand, though the survey was done by reputable universities, and Reading, much to my pleasure, has a reading centre (I live near Reading)- that's not to say that the Mail has correctly represented the findings..

There is no must about poetry
no have to, no forced to,
no learn this or you’re for it,
no see me in my office,
no government inspector,
no guardians of culture,
no thundering headlines,
no disgusted of the suburbs,
Poetry has better things to do

Children here in Australia are much more likely to study an advertising jingle than a limerick. I am told that this is more important and that there is 'no time' for the teaching of poetry!

Brian, I'm sorry, but as a former primary school teacher myself I have to disagree with you.

Primary school teaching should require a certain breadth of general knowledge. No-one's saying every primary teacher should know the names of lots of poets, but if more than half don't know the names - just the names, mind you, not the titles of any of their poems, not first lines or quotes but just the names - of more than two, don't you think that indicates a problem with our culture?

You're right - teachers have for years been used as political whipping boys, and we should give them a break. And clearly we shouldn't respond to this by suggesting teachers go and learn lists of poets. But neither should we pretend there is no problem here.

I'm glad to see this has sparked a debate. Brian--I am not trying to use primary teachers as whipping boys (or girls). I know what a hard job they have and how many wretched Governmental directives they have to comply with, noses pressed to the grindstone. However, I am with John and Anne here. A teacher--any teacher--should have a certain amount of general knowledge of this kind before they even start in the classroom--it's not a question of something they must or should be learning after they are in the profession. If our education system has been broken for so long that 58% of this generation of teachers cannot even name, say Milton or Shakespeare (both poets), then there is clearly a very big hill to climb indeed before it is mended. The sampling was, from memory, a fairly large one for a study--over 2500 teachers. I do not know whether they were taken from one area or across the UK--and Leslie makes another valid point about whether the Mail has interpreted the findings in a balanced way (as I said, it's not my paper of choice). However, I felt it was important to draw attention to this study because, if true, I find it very worrying to contemplate such a large lacuna in what should be basic knowledge in the very people who have care of the education of our next generation. If we do not acknowledge it we cannot start mending it--ignoring it is not an option.

And thank you, Katherine. I am glad you liked it.

Primary school teachers and everyone else should have read some poetry/ learned who the poets are LONG LONG before they even get to be students. In their childhood. But THEIR teachers ( and PARENTS!! Let us not forget that people have PARENTS) should have taught them in their turn and so on down the line. EVERYONE has a right to know about poetry and be exposed to it and lack of knowledge leads on to MORE lack of knowledge....I'm sounding like a Grumpy Old Woman I know but there you go...

No, Adele--not a GOW at all. You are quite right and hit the nail squarely on the head. That's the bit which scares me--the lack of knowledge leading on to more lack of knowledge. The 'poetry car' is running very low on petrol and needs filling up soon or it will grind to a halt. But how do we do this--how do we start to redress the balance--and I mean all of us collectively, rather than just an initiative like Bookstart?

that last line was meant to read 'rather than just relying on an initiative like Bookstart?'

I understand that the actual question asked was to name "6 good poets writing for children". This surely makes a huge difference?

If that's the case, Colyngbourne, then it makes an enormous difference. That's certainly not how it's been reported - on Radio 4's Today as well as in the papers - but the media isn't always that good at reporting studies accurately (another problem to which attention needs to be drawn!).

Yes, the Daily Mail article 'damning' teachers is here (with a comment beneath explaining the misrepresentation) - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1219130/More-half-primary-teachers-unable-poets.html

Then the actual report is here http://www.ukla.org/downloads/TARwebreport.doc

and the actual survey ("Name 6 'good' children's poets") is here http://www.ukla.org/site/research/research_projects_in_progress/teachers_as_readers_building_communities_of_readers/

Oops, sorry, it missed the last bit of the address off that:


http://www.ukla.org/site/research/research_projects_in_progress/teachers_as_readers_building_communities_of_readers/

There we are then... just the Daily Mail up to its usual foaming at the mouth.

Hanging out in bookstores (USA) I have noticed that almost all who buy poetry books are themselves poets. Makes me wonder if anyone reads it these days except poets (and some English teachers).
Sad, really. Nothing teaches a language better than poetry, and the lessons learned go far beyond just poems.

I didn't know it was National Poetry Day! But I was feeling Shakespearian today as well. Something nice to read aloud of an evening!

BY the way, I hear you were on Cybils SF/F last year -- and you still got books from US publishers. I am now in Glasgow - hoping it's the same.

I was indeed on the Cybils SF&F Nominations Committee last year... I hope you enjoy it !

I'm *always* feeling Shakespearian !