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A Gem in the Wordpile

Date and time
Tuesday 18 May 2021, 18:00 BST to 19:00 BST
Attendance and participation
This is an online only event.

About this webinar

This is a term I use when working with children who might be intimidated by a hard poem.

I ask them to find something that shines out in the lines. A happier hardness. A handle, A door.

I have been writing pieces about John Keats recently and somebody asked me a poem of his that I would recommend. I instinctively suggested A Song of Myself. Asked why, I replied that it was a doorway into the rest of the work. A light. A tool. In my own time at Bradford University, a tool I was given by lecturer Jack Morrell was the idea that science does not always need to operate on a true description of the world An adequate one, will sometimes do. I aim to speak about gems, tools, doors, handles, lights, education, and Bradford. Here is a poem relating to the last two.

A father's protest

My father played the banjo
but it’s more guitar for me
and I came from Bradford, Yorkshire
with a rather poor degree.
I only received a Lower Second
but, without it I should add -
there would not be
this poetry;
you try telling my dad!
I had a dream the other night,
I was playing my guitar
when I was kicked quite forcefully
by Monsieur Cantona.
I said, ‘hey, Eric,
now why do that to me?’
He said, ‘that is from your father, 
for your rather poor degree.’

Schedule/programme

Tuesday, 18th May (17:00-18:00 GMT)

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