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Liz Lochhead on making poetry a joy for the nation's kids

08 October 2009, 22:09

As the country celebrates the 16th annual National Poetry Day, debate circulates as to poetry’s role in modern society and the approach of those entrusted with teaching it in schools.

Glasgow’s Poet Laureate – Liz Lochhead – says that modern teaching methods and pupil’s attitudes contribute to making poetry unappealing to many. A frequent visitor to schools to impart her knowledge on the subject, she says the feedback she often receives is of pupils who feel that they are forced to understand a poem, rather than being able to embrace and understand it on their own.

“It’s made too much a horrible thing for exams,” says Lochhead. “I tell people whenever I go into schools: ‘I never, ever, ever wrote a poem in my life to make people suffer in exams’. I certainly didn’t, I wrote them for fun.

“Yes, you can write answer questions about things you like but you’ve got to like it first. If you’ve not got what it’s about and somebody tries to force you to learn the right answer about the meaning, that’s tragic. But there’s a lot of great teachers as well.”

To combat feelings that poetry is dated and irrelevant to our kids, 30,000 copies of Edwin Morgan’s science fiction poem The First Men on Mercury have been adapted into comic book form for every secondary school pupil in Glasgow.

With the country’s children being encouraged to embrace poetry, Lochhead is also encouraging older generations to give poetry a chance and treat it as similar to music.

“It’s important because it is as basic to us as a song or a dance,” Lochhead says. “We are human beings. The first poems we fall in love with when we are wee is the nursery rhyme. What baby doesn’t like to enjoy the sound of nonsense words?

“With a poem, the music is all there in the rhythm. Not necessarily the rhyme, but the rhythm of the language. So it’s a kind of song without music. It should be as simple as that.

“You should be hearing it out loud. I think I would like to say to everyone on National Poetry Day, if you’ve got a poem, taste the words and say it out loud. Or remember something maybe your granny taught you. Say it out loud, that’s the way to begin to enjoy it.”

If you would like to download a copy of the comic book version of The First Men on Mercury - as designed by Metaphrog from Edwin Morgan’s poem - visit http://www.metaphrog.com/mercury/.

Last updated: 08 October 2009, 22:14