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You’ve all written book reviews. Have you written Haiku – the traditional form of Japanese poetry written in 3 lines; the first line with 5 syllables, the second line with 7 syllables, and the third line with 5 syllables?

Here’s your chance to combine your skills. Try writing a book review in Haiku form.

eg. Mutiny on the Bounty by John Boyne

Fourteen year old John

Caught up in a mutiny

Will he live or die?

Add your haiku to the comments on this post, and I’ll publish the really good ones as posts in their own right. A prize for the best one will be awarded during the last week of term.

(Apologies to the insideadog team from whom I pinched this idea).

Mrs Sweeney

Image : http://www.scotlandschool.org/staff/mbakken/images/haiku-plaque-01-s.jpg 30/7/08

There is little talk on poetry, which I assume is incorporated in this blog, though I do concede that there has been a bit.

One of my favourites is:

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

- Robert Frost (1874–1963)

Does anybody else have any good poetry to share?

Image : http://farm1.static.flickr.com/107/267079735_1004c1c585.jpg 28/7/-8

Image : http://www.tonyfugere.com/funny/ 18/7/08 Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).

Exciting news! The time has come to announce the winner of the ‘Most Commented on Post’ competition for term 2, 2008. And the winner is…Tyronec! This prolific contributor wrote about the decline of English in his post Moden Inglish , attracting 16 comments on this controversial subject. Clearly it’s something Scotch boys feel strongly about.

Congratulations Tyronec! Come and see me to collect your yummy prize.

There is also a consolation prize for Gilla, runner up in the competition with his post ‘Poetry for Dummies’, which inspired 11 responses. Come and collect your prize too, Gilla!

The competition will run again this term, so start thinking of topics which might ignite passions in your fellow students or staff. Remember, they do need to be related to books, writing, reading, words or the literary world.

Good luck!

Mrs Sweeney

Posted by gilla 

Are you not that good at poetry? Do rhyming words confuse you? Then this is the blog for you!! What this post is about is poems that are just 2 words long!!!!!!!!!! And they don’t even have to rhyme! What you have to do is think about something (like a pet etc.) and think up 2 words that best describes it.   Such as…         “My Dog”

                                              Energetic.

                                              Mess.

Post a comment of any Poems you have thought up.

Some song lyrics are considered great writing, either for the poetry, their power or their ryhthm. Bob Dylan is one example of a songwriter who is also a poet and a consummate storyteller. Read the lyrics to John Brown , the story of a boy badly injured in the American Civil War, now returning home to his mother.

In Australia, many refer to Paul Kelly as a people’s poet, and ‘his lyrics are on the Victorian education syllabus, studied by year 12 students as raw text or in song format…[Paul] “feels a bit sorry” for the kids who have to study his words.

It’s a tough gig he says, but one he finds stimulating. Many of Kelly’s lyrics are an amalgam of source material, from “other lyrics, or from another song, a line of poetry, lines from the Bible, Shakespeare. So if you get asked a question about the lyrics you can connect them up, so that you end up not talking about your own stuff all the time but the other stuff that connects it as a whole”.’ (from an interview in the Review section of The Weekend Australian 23-24 June, p.4-5).

To read some of Paul Kelly’s lyrics go to his website.

???
Are there any lyrics you think of as worthy writing ie.can they make an impact without the music? Tell us about them.

Mrs Sweeney