Hi all,

I hope you’re busy working on your competition entries. I’m very much looking forward to reading them.

Although your in-class study has ended it’s great to see some schools continuing to develop their understanding and responses to poems studied.

Hanover  produced this stunning visual response to the poem “In Flanders Fields“… (click on the images to enlarge)

It was a week of experimentation as many of you tried blackout poetry.

Suad from Grafton clearly selected carefully to create this cohesive poem:

aching eyes
to you from failing hands we throw the torch,
reaching landings and turning corners.
The night darkening and the storm fast descending,
yet nothing can move!

Scarlet from Rotherfield made interesting selections to and weaved them together using well-judged line breaks:

Water
By the schoolyard ,a day in
June
And all the children
Laughed in the summer heat.
They head,
Shaming laughter
But what they saw was only
, far distant forests,
In Flander field
We lived,
In Flander field
We shall not sleep
In Flander field
No crystals
No carpet
And
No light
Its kinder hard
Life for me
A tyrant spell bound me
I cannot go
Beyond

While Jorden from Rotherfield changed the tone of the original poems through his selections in order to make it comic:

a red wheel barrow
saw a dancing bear
they watched it march they watched it halt.
“Now roly – poly somersault!”

Conversely, Angel from Rotherfield selected extracts to create a mysterious tone with the intention of making the reader want to know more:

rain water
by the schoolyard,
whistle-pipe, and played a tune.
Its head
summer heat.
they heard the
bear with burning coat of fur,
they paid a penny
aching eyes,
the poppies blow
mark our place;
the guns are dead.
short days sunset glow,
loved ones were loved,
the torch;
hold it
though
boards torn up,
all the time
and reachin’ landin’s
set down
still climin’
crystal spell
cannot.
bending
i cannot go.
cannot go.

Ema from Pakeman used the Bronte poem’s refrain to structure their own vivid poem: