Understanding poetry

Now and then, children may groan when you mention the word ‘poetry’, maybe because sometimes it just doesn’t make sense at first.

So, a little anecdote might help here …

Recently, I taught a reading comprehension workshop looking at a speech from Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’. This speech is commonly referred to as the ‘Seven Ages of Man’. According to William Shakespeare’s character Jaques, men go through seven stages in their lives: infancy, schoolboy, teenager, young man, middle age, old aged and dotage & death.

More than one student commented that they had never understood Shakespeare. But, they quickly saw that by breaking the speech/poem down into parts and identifying the universal themes, that the initially tricky language was an intentionally humorous way of describing us very predictable humans. One student said, “Oh, we haven’t changed much over the centuries, have we?” Oh, and one valuable tip to help bring poetry to life is to watch it performed (YouTube is good).

If you fancy reading a poem with your child, here’s a nice short one, and I’ve suggested a few initial questions to chat through with them to get thoughts flowing. Like the Shakespeare poem, this one has themes still relevant today.

Leisure – by William Davies (1911)
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
-ends-

Initial questions:
• What is ‘leisure’?
• Why do you think the poet chose ‘Leisure’ as the title of this poem?
• What could an alternative title for this poem be?
• Can you think of any key messages from this poem?
• Do you think the messages from this poem are still relevant today?