Teaching poetry: Teaching Art

A new paper by Jeff (2010) discusses how art is taught in schools. The teaching of art is, of course, linked to the teaching of poetry. This is a bit of what the author says about the role of the 'expert':

"Art in UK schools...frequently characterised by hierarchical concepts of individual talent and genius, and the adherence to a well-established and largely unquestioned canon of great artists whose work within a narrow range of aesthetic codes, normally those associated with mimetic depiction (Downing and Watson 2004). Pedagogically, these regimes rely upon an expert specialist for delivery of skills and appropriate sensibilities to a largely positive set of recipients, the learners, which emphasises the role art plays in reinforcing the socially constraining and limiting function of education"

In this paper Jeff criticises 'Creative Partnerships' as being an example of this hierarchical perspective of 'the artist' and then everyone else. One could argue that in the teaching of poetry the model is often the same. Here, once again we are faced with the post-structuralist challenge and the question of power relations and the freedom of expression and the dangers of schools reinforcing messages about 'real art' only being about the individual genius of others.

James Britton on Play and Poetry (1982)

"Piaget states that roughly from the age of two to the age of eleven children's characteristic activity is that of make believe play, and he calls this 'Symbolic Representation'. In play children work over their experiences, and their enactments are a symbol representing actual experience. By the age of eleven, Piaget says a child is normally able to think in concepts. Children's writing reflects this development. Much that they write at six or seven or eight is more like poetry than prose in that it is a gloss upon experience rather than formulation itself"

"...Poetry, in common with all literature, is as much a rehearsal of experience as is make believe play (Here is trial without the possibility of error)".

Britton goes on to suggest that poems deal with poets coming to terms with ideas and events. Symbolic representataions of experience. This must mean that all forms of art could be described as a form of therapy.

Happy New Year

The ESRC poetry seminar series began this week in Exeter. I am co-convener. There were some excellent papers and stimulating discussion. Poems were read and written too.

One discussion I had concerned the concept of bad poems. I was interested to learn from poets and teachers of poetry what a bad poem looked like. Are there poems out there which are objectively 'bad'? Of course everyone is free to say which poems they like and which poems they think are 'good' and have value and which ones they think are not good (bad) and have no value...for them; but can a consensus be found about poems that are generally thought bad?

Is there a need to do this? There must be dangers here if we do. Being told that bad poems are out there may well contribute to the fear people have of poetry. Yet, writers and teachers of poetry often talk about bad poems, so it is in need of discussion.


Peter Sansum (1994), in his book 'Writing Poetry' says that some poems are 'tripe'. He is certain that bad poems are very common. These are poems which are some-how dishonest about the meanings they convey and how this is done and/or are full of cliche.

Seamus Cooney here ( http://homepages.wmich.edu/~cooneys/poems/bad/index.html ) has this to say

"To achieve memorable badness is not so easy. It has to be done innocently, by a poet unaware of his or her defects. The right combination of lofty ambition, humorless self-confidence, and crass incompetence is rare and precious. (There is a famous anthology of bad poetry called The Stuffed Owl, which I recommend to those interested.)

For the student, having a genuine insight into the true badness of some poems is, I think, a necessary corollary of having a grasp of what makes good poems good."

On his web site about 'bad poetry' Cooney includes Wordsworth aand Coleridge. Cooney, playfully is looking for objective properties of bad poems.


Bad poems? Below I play with ideas.


Bad poems:
1. Poems which are written for occasions which contain language and/or are about subjects which are inappropriate to be read in particular contexts
2. Prose
3. Poems which are stated as being written in a particular form which break the rules - e.g. a ballad which is not a ballad.
4. Poems which are written by someone who has no interest in writing one and little effort has been made in its composition
5.Poems written by those who do not know what a poem is and what it can do and/or have read very little poetry.
6. A poem no one can understand
7. A poem that people know about, but no one has any interest reading
8. Poems written by those who are not genuine about writing poems. There is another motive other than poetry.
9. A poem everyone thinks is bad



None of the definitions of bad poetry above necessarily mean that the poetry produced will be considered bad by everyone. There will always be someone (with the exception of (7) and (9)) who will enjoy them, even if it is just the poet.

So, what is a good poem...? Try changing the definions above. What do you get? For example,

'Poems which are written by someone who has a huge interest in writing one and has made great effort in its composition'.

Will this produce a good poem, or just not a bad one? Or does it just increase the chances of a good poem being produced as it was with a bad poem.

I suspect the definitions of good poetry will be different in nature to definitions about bad poems.