Poetry in a foreign language...

It's been an incredibly long time since my last post; I imagine this is because the more you leave such things, the greater the task of returning to it feels. In any case, a lot has happened since my post on Cold Comfort Farm, Bright Star and various other things. I am now back in the UK, my 'year' abroad in Tours finished and my year abroad project written (it was about the roles of women on three chateaux in the area around Tours if you are particularly interested!). Although I've got used to it again I do miss France and speaking French. I hope to go back at some point in August, though.

In a weeks' time I start something called the Student Associate Scheme; a project to encourage students in Higher Education to take up teaching, specifically in 'shortage' subjects (maths, science and modern foreign languages). I'll therefore be spending three weeks as a classroom assistant, learning about the British secondary school system from the opposite perspective. Should be interesting! It will be especially intruiging for me to compare teaching English in France to teaching French in England.

One thing I tried once or twice while an 'assistante' was to use poetry. We are fortunate to have such a broad and beautiful range of poetry in our language, and it would be a shame for my students to have missed out on it. I used a few different ones - 'little tree' by e.e.cummings at Christmas and 'i carry your heart with me', also by cummings - amongst them, and got some really positive responses ranging from poetical analysis to emotional response. I was expecting to give a Shakespeare lesson to one particularly bright class but it sadly didn't happen; I was planning to look at a sonnet or two. I did one exercise a few times with a couple of different classes, using Jenny Joseph's famous 'Warning':

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.


I didn't give it to my students like this, though; I gave it to them in pairs on a piece of paper, with some words blanked out. For example:
'When I am an old woman I shall wear ______
With a red _____ which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me'
I asked them to fill in the gap with words they felt were appropriate to make their own poem. I supplied some words if they asked - 'spit', 'brandy', 'beermats' - but in general the vocabulary isn't too demanding. At first it took a while for some students to understand what I was asking. They whispered with panicked faces, "But Madame... we don't know the words, we will be wrong!". I tried to explain that they should use their imaginations; there is no wrong answer as long as the poem makes sense. After a few false starts almost everyone finished and we read them aloud.

I wish I'd kept some copies because some of them were truly hilarious, updating the 1961 poem with a real 21st century feel. I seem to remember hearing things like:
'When I am an old woman I shall wear a leather skirt
With a red g-string which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me'
and:
'And eat only hamburgers and fries for a week
And hoard money and drugs and alcohol'
Even the students agreed that their versions were better than the original!

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In other news, I've been reading a lot more blogs in the past year. Five of the best are without a doubt:
http://www.cakewrecks.com/
http://1000awesomethings.com/
http://www.trufflegirls.com/
http://bookshelfporn.com/
http://thxthxthx.com/

Some of my favourite blogs are the ones my friends write; from spiritual reflection to journalism they remind me what wonderful, interesting and talented people I know. I feel like I would like to make this blog more interesting and accessible; perhaps the answer is to write shorter but more regular blogs on random literature-related things. We'll see how that goes...!