I want to preface this with the fact that can only talk about my experience of poetry in schools, and the stories shared with me by parents and teachers. I’d love to hear your thoughts below if you’re a poet, parent, or teacher.
Poetry made me who I am. It’s how I process, and cope with, everyday life. I don’t just write poetry, I am a poet. Published or not, poetry runs through my veins.
I’m fortunate because my mum got me into poetry when I was growing up, buying me Beatrix Potter books and Pam Ayres books and a poet whose name I cannot for the life of me remember, but he wrote poetry for kids and had a poem about how teachers had the answers written on their shirt sleeves. (If you know please let me know in the comments!)
Not to mention I watched a lot of Charmed, where basically every episode had a poem (spell) in it.
Apparently I wrote poetry when I was at infant school, although I don’t remember this. What I do remember was when I first had an idea for a poem at high school…
One day
After a failed attempt to write a poem for RE (Religious Education) in year 7, I didn’t think I had a poetic bone in my body.
In my defence, the poetic style wasn’t my thing, although I don’t remember what the style dictated was.
The poetry assignment was about Pan Gu. I don’t know how I remember that because literally all I remember is the name, and, in total transparency, I spelt that wrong and had to look it up.
I also was so bad at RE that I was only one of three students in a year group of 300 who didn’t do the second part of their RE GCSE.
(Even aged 15, I would’ve preferred to have been taught more critical thinking and sociology over organised religion. I have nothing against people who are religious, just didn’t like the black and white way we were taught it and so didn’t pay any attention. Anyway.)
Several times a week, we had a school assembly. Nobody really paid attention most of the time, although I was one of those kids who often performed, either by reading a poem (someone else’s) or playing the violin (sorry if you had to listen to that).
During one particular assembly in year 8 (aged 12/13), a few lines came into my head.
One day, I’ll meet the man of my dreams,
One day, everything will be what it seems.
The words kept coming:
One day, there will be no Star Wars prequel.
I played the words over and over in my head until I got home. Back then, I didn’t have a phone I could write my ideas down on, and our form teachers checked our planners so I couldn’t write it in there, either.
By the end of the day, I had a fully formed poem.
And then some
I kept going. By the time I left school, I’d written hundreds of poems.
At university, despite studying creative writing, I was the only open female poet in a class of around 30. All the others were male, fans of the Beat poets, or wrote poetry but didn’t class themselves as poets.
Not being able to study poetry and improve my skills gave me an itch.
It wasn’t until my MA, where I did an elective in poetry, that I really felt I could lean into something I loved. It became my best subject. But I was always nervous writing about things that were close to me.
Instead, I submitted poems about fictional experiences or friends’ experiences, keeping my most personal poems to myself.
The power of poetry, and why it matters in schools
Schools in the UK have been sucked dry of creativity over the last 14 years. English classes are full of fronted adverbials and academic language, focusing on STEM subjects and treating creativity like it doesn’t matter.
But creativity matters more than ever.
Creativity is what makes us human.
Despite what the tech bros will tell you, AI isn’t creative. It cannot think like you. It spits out an amalgamation of what a bunch of people like you might think.
But it will never have your unique experiences and insights no matter how much you train it.
There will always be facets of who you are that influence what you do and how you think that you’ve never even considered. Without a lot of counselling and coaching, anyway.
Poetry teaches us critical thinking.
Poetry teaches us self-expression.
Poetry teaches us fearlessness.
It’s a way for all of us to be who we are and feel what we feel, even if we never share it with anyone.
So what’s gone wrong with poetry in schools?
Now, I’m only talking about my experiences, and my interpretations, here. But a lot of what we study at school for English Literature no one really gives a fuck about. Most of the teachers don’t like, or don’t understand, poetry, so they regurgitate what they need to in order to cover the syllabus and ensure students perform well in exams.
But they don’t understand it.
And they don’t like it.
And that attitude is contagious.
I have friends who are great at writing poems. But they would never, ever consider themselves a poet. And they won’t read poetry either.
They think poetry is above them; better than them; too intellectual for them.
And that’s precisely where schools are going wrong in teaching poetry.
Poetry does not have to be intellectual, and it is not above anyone.
It does not have to be full of metaphors or descriptions of landscapes. (If I ever publish a poem describing landscapes, it’s a call for help. I find it hard enough to describe them in books.)
The issue is when every poem taught in an English class was written by a rich, middle-aged, cisgendered, heterosexual, able-bodied white person. Students don’t see themselves reflected back in the poetry, so they assume it’s not for them.
And if they don’t have parents who love poetry, or another close family member or friend who does, there’s nobody to pass on that love of poetry, either.
That’s where we’ve gone wrong.
We’re teaching people poetry isn’t for them.
The Tortured Poets Department and the Taylor Swift effect
Taylor Swift titled her most recent album The Tortured Poets Department. Her lyrics are poetry. Some people can’t differentiate between her lyrics and Shakespeare.
She writes beautiful lyrics about relationships, mental health, and self-reflection. She’s also great at sticking a finger up to critics and naysayers.
It’s people like her who teach their fans to love language, and by association, poetry.
You don’t have to define something as poetry for it to be poetic. Poetry isn’t about rigid forms or structures or rhymes. It’s a feeling. An emotion. Something that gets to you on a deeper level.
Which is exactly what great songwriting does.
Many songs start out as poems. No Doubt’s Trapped in a Box started out as a poem written by band member Tom Dumont.
Songs by Oasis and Blur started out as poems, too.
Stevie Nicks wrote a poem for the physical copy of TTPD.
Poetry is everywhere. You just have to know where to look.
The age of female rage
I want to wrap up by talking about a hot topic right now: female rage. Thanks, in part, to TTPD, followed by Brat and Short n’ Sweet, female rage is, well, all the rage.
And I’m here for it.
It has always, always pissed me off that my female friends feel unable to express anger in a healthy way. Or at all.
This can lead to volcanoes. Nastiness. Personal attacks. Friendships ending because people can’t process their emotions in any fucking way that’s not toxic.
Just like men are told they can be angry, women are told that we can’t.
To be fully rounded people, we have to experience all the emotions. Even the uncomfortable ones.
Especially the uncomfortable ones.
We have to sit with them, express them, maybe even write about them.
Perhaps we express those emotions through dance, music, boxing, writing. Something else. But this is why I believe poetry in schools – and beyond – is so important. It’s vital to self-expression.
It lets us feel the emotions in a healthy way, without lashing out at another person and causing irreparable harm to a relationship.
Which leads me nicely on to a big announcement.
Coming autumn 2024 is my very first poetry collection: Revenge of the Redhead.
Revenge of the Redhead
I’ve been planning this collection for over a decade. I have the social media posts to prove it.
But whenever I got close to releasing it, I chickened out.
However, the What Happens in Hollywood Universe is done. I can’t channel my poetic energy into that anymore. It’s got to go somewhere.
This has been on my bucket list for far too long.
Am I fucking terrified?
Yes I am.
The poems within its pages are deeply personal.
Well, most of them.
Some are about my own experiences, others are me doing what I love the most: telling stories.
But I can’t tell you which ones are real and which ones are fictional. That would defeat the point.
Poetry should be open to interpretation. That’s where its power lies. It improves our critical thinking skills, allows us to project and reflect, and makes us feel seen. It’s a powerful, underestimated, and underfunded tool.
I know my little poetry collection won’t change the world, but that’s ok. It’s already changed my life.
