Diversifying GCSE poetry

[Sebastian Cobb]

As mentioned I do think GCSE poetry put me off it a bit, something that made me re-evaluate was when I happened to be in a pub that put on a poetry or open mic night thing and had some locals gave a go at it and were selling a little pamphlet. Notably this one:

[touchingcloth]

I wanna be your vacuum cleaner sucking up your dust
I wanna be your Ford Cortina, I will never rust
Something about a coffee pot

That's what I remember about GCSE poetry. We studied a John Hughes one about a moth or an eagle or whatever, one about a shalwar kameez, one written in Scotch.

Halide caste is the only one I remember, probably because it had the most vibrant recorded reading by an author. I remember listening to the Ted Hughes one about a caterpillar or a rusty hinge or whatever read by the man himself, and he was just droning on and on. No wonder he drove people to sticking their heads in the oven.

EXCSKOOV BEEF, STANDIN ON ONE LEG
HAVE ANY BODY GOT A ANY BOCKL ORNGE JUOOF

[JaDanketies]

Definitely don't remember John Cooper Clark from GCSE poetry. First encountered him by a man reciting him at the pub I worked at (in Cheetham Hill, Manchester)

[touchingcloth]

The Edexcel syllabus in the early 00s had that one John Cooper Clarke poem in the "poems from other cultures and traditions section". The other section was where you studied several poems by a single English great, and our teacher chose Hughes for that.

[kalowski]

Is it just me or is Cooper Clark overrated?

[kalowski]

As mentioned I do think GCSE poetry put me off it a bit, something that made me re-evaluate was when I happened to be in a pub that put on a poetry or open mic night thing and had some locals gave a go at it and were selling a little pamphlet. Notably this one:

I quite like that, except the last two lines. I'd love the poet to be talking about someone else.

[JaDanketies]

Is it just me or is Cooper Clark overrated?

He's a bit of a Lowry figure round here (and don't say his quick pictures of urban life and isolation are overrated either, they taught me from year dot that he's amazing). Disappointed he's a terf (not Lowry, his opinions are lost in the sands of time)

We take what we can get here in Manchester. Morrissey for example

[touchingcloth]

Hey, he's a Salford lad. An overrated Salford lad.

I really like him as a raconteur when he's on the radio or telly, but when he appears on Countdown or whatever I'd actively prefer it if he didn't throw to the ad breaks with a poem.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I quite like his poems and Snap Crackle and Bop! but I'm inclined to agree with the raconteur stuff as when I saw him it was just about, if not more about, his interaction with the crowd between poems than the poems themselves. But one man's entertainment is another's 'old man bollocking on and not getting on with it' as one critic noted.

[idunnosomename]

Cast-iron cow-shit

[touchingcloth]

Tell you what, though, in the battle of poets with regional accents from the north there's no contest, and John can stand next to me while we throw Ian McMillan into the sea. Or maybe I mean Simon Armitage. Anyway, if they sound like they're reading twee doggerel for a McDonald's advert then they can drown in the ocean. And Stuart Heritage can get in there for good measure.

What was the question again?

[Dickie_Anders]

I was a 15 year old who loved Larkin's poetry after being taught about it in school, so I think it is a bit of a shame. Then again maybe most kids find it boring. It'd be a bit arrogant of me to say it should be mandatory just because I liked it

It's bizarre to me that a guy who wrote poems like 'High Windows' and 'Love Again' was right-wing. I get the impression he was really more a 4channer of his day - not necessarily a proper nazi, just a nerd with a well-spring of insecurities, which lead him to be purposefully contrarian and outrageous. Don't blame schools for wanting rid of him for that reason

[neveragain]

Well, I never thought I'd be dismissing Philip Larkin today! But I am. Still bloody love Aubade.

[Kankurette]

I prefer Lemn Sissay's building poetry.

Was the Scottish poem the 6 o'clock news one? 'The man said wi' a BBC accent'?

[Paul Calf]

Larkin in 1976:

I want to see them starving,
The so-called working class.
Their wages weekly halving,
Their women stewing grass.
When I drive out each morning
In one of my new suits
I want to find them fawning
To clean my car and boots.

If only he'd lived another half century to see his dream come true.

[Dex Sawash]

I like your ancient mariner and a short one about an ocelot that eats apple sauce but I don't recall all of it.

[Bennett Brauer]

Not sure poetry gives one solid fuck whether it's on a syllabus or not. 

Yes!

[Bennett Brauer]

Larkin seemed obviously right-wing but in a buttoned-up reactionary way, and he seems to have been fairly unloveable too, but he definitely was a brilliant poet. Maybe he was a brilliant poet in spite of himself, or maybe he had to act like a jerk for deep-seated psychological reasons to counteract his sensitivity.

His genuine heroes were black jazz musicians more than other poets and authors.

[Bennett Brauer]

Larkin in 1976:

I want to see them starving,
The so-called working class.
Their wages weekly halving,
Their women stewing grass.
When I drive out each morning
In one of my new suits
I want to find them fawning
To clean my car and boots.

If only he'd lived another half century to see his dream come true.

If you don't find that funny, fair enough, but how is it different from the kind of provocative humour we often use on here for effect? Taking it at face value seems stupid to me.

[Buelligan]

Is it just me or is Cooper Clark overrated?

Art is not a shroud to be measured, even by gods.

Someone I know and love, lived as a heroin addict on Cromwell Street when Fred and Rosemary West were there.  He holds Beasley Street in great esteem, simply because it's a ticket to, a window out on, a real evocation of, those feral neglected places where we leave people to die (because we don't give a fuck about anybody else).  And that is poetry.

[kalowski]

Art is not a shroud to be measured, even by gods.

Someone I know and love, lived as a heroin addict on Cromwell Street when Fred and Rosemary West were there.  He holds Beasley Street in great esteem, simply because it's a ticket to, a window out on, a real evocation of, those feral neglected places where we leave people to die (because we don't give a fuck about anybody else).  And that is poetry.

Maybe so, but Cooper Clark is overrated. 😀

[Captain Z]

Is it just me or is Cooper Clark overrated?

I've stayed out of this thread because poetry is probably my biggest cultural blindspot, I just do not get it. I can imagine my tastes changing over time when it comes to things I'm currently not into, like classical music or architecture for example, but I cannot imagine ever not wanting to be absolutely anywhere else when poetry is being recited.

Anyway, JCC. I don't mind him as a person but his poetry makes me want to cringe myself inside out. What I can't get over is that Bob Mortimer does an absolutely spot-on impersonation of his style on Athletico Mince (referred to as his "John Cooper Lockdown"/"Lockdown Gary" poems), which are literally indistiguishable from the real thing. One of these people is a renowned professional, and the other is a daft comdian that probably tossed it off in 15 minutes between a load of other sketch material for a weekly podcast. This isn't the best example, but the clips don't often appear outside the full episodes (the second one, "Ape In A Cage" is better):

I suppose he has at least indirectly given us Joe Wilkinson's "Hanging About In A Train Station Toilet, Naming People's Penises", so deserves credit for that.

[sevendaughters]

I think the initiative is brilliant and needed - many kids these days are actually dealing with poetry on a daily basis via the rappers they have and the drillers they have and the grimers they have. Formalising that and moving it closer to actual experience just seems like a natural thing to do. You can appreciate Larkin and Heaney later.

Just as a general observation, British youth culture is just not 'white' anymore. The rhythms are different, the colloquialisms are different, the expressions are different - and they're not just nicked from Americans like when I was a kid - they're from a wide range of social and migratory histories. I think there's a real moment to try and make study of English a beautiful and relevant thing. Nothing's stopping me from reading Lawrence Durrell in my own time.

[jamiefairlie]

Formal study of English is pointless. Have classroom time set aside where you can read what you want and then have a presentation/ discussion about why you like it.

I sailed through English with top grades and learned nothing from it. Everything came from my own reading.

[Buelligan]

Maybe so, but Cooper Clark is overrated. 😀

When we meet, we say John Cooper Clark is silly old fart in our best JCC voices.

[jamiefairlie]

When we meet, we say John Cooper Clark is silly old fart in our best JCC voices.

I like that one where he starts his poem about chickens but abruptly switches to a pitch perfect impersonation of Joy Division playing Transmission live. It's bold