Richard – Carol Ann Duffy

On the 26th March 2015, we in Britain laid to rest one of this country’s most illustrious Kings. In life, he was a mystery, an enigma. Indeed, William Shakespeare penned him in his now infamous play in a certain way, to make him sound like the villain of the piece, the one person responsible for young, Royal deaths, for the demise of his Kingdom. He was, in the Bard’s eyes, partly responsible for so many wrong things in this country.

When Shakespeare wrote Richard III, he did so with a political and/or moral point in mind, so when a short time ago, an archaeological dig found human remains in their first trench dug in Leicester, under a car park, the world watched on as DNA testing took place. Eventually, there came the news that they had found the remains of the late, King Richard III, slain at Bosworth and hastily buried by Monks at the time. He had been there for nearly 500 years so the story was, and is, immense.

As part of the decision to lay him to rest in Leicester Cathedral, the poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, was asked to write a poem that tried to encapsulate Richard in one go. Given the fact that 500 years of British history had gone by, opinions formed and with most of us being able to quote “A horse, a horse, my Kingdom for a horse,” or “now is the winter of our discontent,” it made for an intriguing story.

So, I watched last night on the television, the highlights of the reburial in Leicester Cathedral, and heard the actor Benedict Cumberbatch, himself related loosely to Richard III, read this poem. He began with his usual gravitas, just as, I believe, Duffy would want, when he read the first line, with the voice of Richard sounding through the centuries to us in this modern age.

Those words: “My bones, scripted in light,” resonated the meaning straight away. The reader, if you are ever studying this at some point later in GCSE or other studies, is left in no doubt that Richard is speaking and that is a very clever skill from Duffy, who gives such an enigma his voice at last.

Gone are the myths. Gone are the rumours. All we have is this one, lone voice, who has laid “upon cold soil, a human braille” for so long now. His burial would have been hasty. In those days, Kings won their power in battle and tended to lose their heads at the hands of their victor. Anyone who has read and studied Macbeth will know what I mean.

His voice asks us to consider certain certain things in this poem. He says “my skull, scarred by a crown, emptied of history” which is meant to make us think of the time when he did wear the crown of England and would have done so with pride. But there is a deathly element to the words as well for his skull is indeed, scarred by the rigours of being buried where he was for such a length of time.

“Describe my soul,” he asks, and see what you get. Can we describe a soul? Not really, but the myths that surround Richard III are ones that develop his mystique in such a way as to be villainous and we do not really know if this is true or not. “Describe my soul as incense” makes a little more sense in the fact that this poem was meant to be read out by someone at a church service for Richard III’s funeral. Incense is used at such a burial in the Church of England and in Catholic Churches.

The word “votive” is a strange one, so please do not get hooked up on it. You are better suited looking at the rest of the words, like “vanishing,” reflecting the vanishing nature of Richard’s remains over time. Each word is a reminder of where such a nobleman has been hiding for the last half of a Millennium. This, coupled with the words “Grant me the carving of my name” lead to a powerful pause in the thoughts of those who read or hear this.

Up until now, this poem has been more about Richard and his soul. Now, he refers to the “relics” and asks us to “bless” them. We hear him say that he imagines us as we “re-tie a broken string and on it thread a cross.” This Christian symbol is one that was taken from him when he died, so Duffy relates this as she has the King uttering “the symbol severed from me when I died.” It is as if the King himself is not dead, but speaking to us directly in a very powerful manner.

And then we see a change in direction as Duffy refers us to the “end of time.” This is a Christian belief in what will happen at the end of days, when God will end this world as we know it and all things will be made new, as it says in the book of Revelation. But as this happens, there will be “an unknown, unfelt loss,” according to Richard III and Carol Ann Duffy, unless there is actually something we call “the Resurrection of the Dead.” The ellipsis at the end of the line is meant to make you think of what comes next; heaven, Nirvana, rebirth, reincarnation etc.

Many a great and wonderful war poet has tried to get over to the reader the idea of what it is like to be on the battle field. But here, Duffy does this in a different way, for she has Richard telling us all, as readers, that as a man, he “once dreamed of this, your future breath in prayer” for him as he was lost in clay. But now, after all this time, he is now “forever found.” To some readers, there is a clear spark of recognition here at these words because some of us know about the story in the Bible of the Prodigal Son. We know what happens and how the son “comes to his senses” and returns home to a fully welcoming father. There are words there that remind us that once, Richard was lost, but now, he is found. The poem is meant to make that connection [cf Luke 15 – The Bible].

In all the time he has been hidden from our view, he has “sensed [us] from the backstage of [his] death, as Kings glimpse shadows on a battleground.” What a powerful ending that is! It is the sort of ending that if read correctly, as Mr Cumberbatch did, is meant to bring forth the idea that even in death, we can sense that which is around us, as if in all that time, the missing King has been waiting to be found. And that is how it came about – someone said we should dig in a certain place and when they did, they found a body that matched the DNA of King Richard III of England. It was a once in a million chance and it came off.

What Carol Ann Duffy has done here is produce a piece of work that quite simply gives the King a voice, and it is one that does so in such a unique manner, for it allows us to humanise that which has been dehumanised. Now that is very clever indeed! The King is dead. Long live the King!

RJ March 27th. 2015

In all my travels as a teacher, I can safely say one thing is true, that structure is everything in your writing. Whether it be a Language and Power essay at A Level, or an essay about a novel at GCSE, structure is everything. It is vital to get your points across in a clear and logical fashion. If you fail to do so, then expect a D grade, or lower.

I have made play of my 5 point essay structure elsewhere on here but the thing actually works. It is one way how to keep to the task and not veer off in a tangent to some other train of thought.

Consider this, for a second. If you are asked to write an essay [on any subject] you would do so, or want to do so, clearly and logically. Hence the need to structure your writing instead of going off half cocked, rambling about anything and/or nothing. A complete waste of your time.

So what if someone asked you to analyse a speech? What if you had to analyse a famous speech, like the I Have A Dream speech from Martin Luther King Jr? Dare you unpick that beauty?

I dare!

This is how:

1. Introduce how the speech is dramatic. Explain that it nearly never came about but for the intervention of the great singer, Mahalia Jackson, who saw MLK flagging somewhat in his speech and yelled “tell em about the dream Martin!” So, he pushed his notes to one side and began with “I HAVE A DREAM!” The rest, as they say, is history. I admire his guts in doing so!

2. Analyse the language – repetition of the word “dream” and how it has differing meanings. Look for ambiguity in meaning. Analyse how he uses the language to great effect.

3. Analyse the audience he was speaking to and if he used appropriate enough language – 1960s black America – the struggles – the history etc. Link to the American Dream [if not sure what this is, where have you been?]

4. Analyse the style of words used by him. Words like “babies” when referring to his children suggest a paternal desire, a need to see improvement and also something else in him; the great preacher. [I too am a preacher and have been for 25 years so know some of the tricks for making hairs stand to attention on necks]

5. Then, a conclusion. Was he successful? MLK’s speech back then is heralded as one of the greatest speeches of all time. I think the answer is yes, he was successful, but allow yourself the freedom to suggest how he may have lost and segregated another audience at the time; the white American who supported him.

By solely concentrating on the black American, was he isolating himself off from the mainstream? This is not even hinted at in the speech but one comment about it and you make your marker [or teacher] THINK!

THAT gets extra points in the exam or in coursework!

So go for it and have that dream, to one day live in a world where getting the A grade is possible. Have that dream today!

Here is the exam question from the last paper that when I saw it, I nearly had heart failure in gleeful surprise.

‘Talent shows like The X Factor provide cheap television, gossip and nothing of any value. There are better programmes than these.’ Argue for or against the views expressed in this quotation. Your piece will appear on the entertainment pages of a website.

What follows is how I would have written it, given half the chance to show off and have some fun!

[To be read in a farmyard, yokel voice]

“Oim a farmer from Summerset, me, a rough, tough, lathered aul’d soul who has never seen a television, let alone seen what is on the thoing, so why should I care?”

Right, now that I have got your attention, let me tell you a few things about these so called ‘talent shows.’

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a man who watched these television shows and loved them. He loved the way that the likes of men called Cowell could act up to the first three letters of their surname and be bullish in their comments to people, who frankly, should have known better than apply to go on the show in the first place. There they were, those ‘Judges,’ sat in their fancy chairs, pontificating over the likes of you and I and making us look ludicrous and the likes of you and I lapped it up. To us, it was entertainment in a life that possibly had little entertainment in it.

But then, after three or four years, these shows like the X Factor and now, with the advent of the BBC show called The Voice, a play on words on the fame of Sir Tom Jones, who can sing, we see the same thing beginning to happen. We see how the originality of the show has gone, leaving with it the sense that next year it will be the same thing all over again. It is this that sticks in my craw. It is this that makes me want to head for the remote button, or in my case, disconnect from mainstream television until the BBC and ITV decide to put something worthwhile on.

I mean, come on folks, The Voice and The X Factor – television for those needing to be drugged out of their already dreary existence? What are we watching these shows for if not to make fun of others or to wish that we had, as Andy Warhol once suggested, our fifteen minutes of fame? Are you watching because you actually want to? If so, you must lead a very dreary life.

Once, I loved these shows, but it is now becoming a case of “the same old same old” each week; Will.i.am paying up to the camera, a new female coach bringing a bit of glitz into proceedings and a group of contestants that frankly, look like they came out of the Dark Ages in places. And we call this entertainment? We have missed the point at some point in our lives I think.

Your commenter stated that “talent shows like The X Factor provide cheap television.” Oh how this is correct. There is little or no value to these shows, just the hope that they bring to a sad, deluded world. Then your commenter said there is nothing but “gossip and nothing of any value.” I have to agree here for as suggested, “there are better programmes than these.”

Once we get past the initial value of seeing someone embarrassed in front of six million viewers, we then see the need to do one thing; switch off. Only then will we begin to grab back some semblance of normality to our weekend viewing, which at one time not a few years ago, was sparkling and excellent, but now, all we see are so called talent shows led by talentless individuals [apart from Sir Tom, who rocks at 74 years of age].

Come on British viewing public, get your finger out and hit that red button!

There is a thing in the AQA 9715 Lit exam that should alarm students. It is like finding a nest of dangerous spiders inside some bananas and finding they are the world’s deadliest. It is a task that asks a student to write about a poem from an ‘unseen’ perspective. For many, this is the thing they fear, which is why my college taught the 4700 syllabus and not the 4705/9715 option. We did not have to do it.

WJEC do this also and add in their teacher pack a document called ‘Unlocking a Poem,’ which is on this blog. It helps you to try and write something sensible about the poem in question. In last year’s AQA unseen poem question, they chose the Linda Pastan poem, To A Daughter Leaving Home and asked for a response.

This would have been mine, had it asked for me to write about the poem in question.

***

The poem To A Daughter Leaving Home, by Linda Pastan, immediately makes the reader think of what it must be like for a parent to see their child finally leaving the family home, flying the nest as it were. It is a poem that reflects and shares the joys and the heartaches of being a parent, of bringing up a child seeing them go through formative years and disappear off into the wide unknown, ready and prepared for what life has for them.

Linda Pastan, in one very emotive poem, tells the reader just what it was like for her, referring to a time when a young one learned to ride a bike. The first line is soaked in pain and intensity, for it tells how the parent taught the child “at eight to ride a bicycle,” something a teenager reader may not react to favourably, but an adult learner might.

For example, I can remember taking my son, aged five, to the park with his bike, pushing him, with my hand on the back of the seat, as he squealed off down the lane in the park. As he did so, I can remember saying “you can do this” and letting go after twenty five yards, seeing him wobble and eventually get to grips with the bike. I can remember the look of complete elation on his face as he stopped, turned to me and let out a really throaty growl of satisfaction.

So when I see a poem like this, with the father [or mother indeed] “loping along beside” the child, I remember with fondness these times of joy. But I also remember the pain involved in bringing up a child. Being a father is the hardest job in the world. It is a cliche I know, but true nonetheless. I can remember as my son learnt to ride his bike, how “my own mouth [was] rounding in surprise” as he “pulled ahead down the curved path of the park.” It was a time to cherish and one I can never forget, however old and decrepit I may become.

I, like the parent in the poem, “kept waiting for the thud” as he crashed, but it never came. All the angst beforehand was gone. All the nervousness and build up was now past history and here was my son able to ride off into the sunset on his own. And even if he had crashed “as I sprinted to catch up,” there would still be the pain and the concern in my face, as I worried for his needs.

As he grew up, he moved away from me as a father-son relationship goes and now he lives in a flat in a city fifty miles away, working to better his own life, but I share the memory “while [he] grew smaller, more breakable with distance.” This is a metaphor for life and how it tends to separate us from our loved ones. It is a powerful way to get across the idea that with age comes suffering and pain.

It is this memory, on the bike in the park, where the poet asks us to concentrate our efforts into the young boy, who is “pumping, pumping for [his] life, screaming with laughter,” as his hair flaps in the wind, rather like a flag in the wind. The hair in the poem is described in such a way as to make the reader think of what it will be like for them when their time comes. This sense of saying “goodbye” is prevalent throughout the poem and it is one that challenges us to think of others as we think of ourselves.

It is, in essence, a place where Junior can go to when he needs some time to himself, a club, a solace from the perils of life and one that has to be cherished at all costs; such is the pain and turmoil that can come with moving on in life. This is why this is such a good poem; it is a memory of a time gone by where there has been chance to shine at something as you grow older. It links especially well with Give, by Simon Armitage, in the way that it has the one voice talking, and also with the Clown Punk, as the driver shares a memory from the past. It is therefore, an excellent poem aimed at sharing some of what it is to ride off into the sunset of life.

NB. In the exam, feel free to write about the poem as you have been taught by your teacher, and me, but also add in how the poem fits with other poems in the anthology. Now that is “Brownie Points Time.”

I was tutoring the other day and discussing the poem, by Simon Armitage, when I had a bit of an epiphany, one of those wondrous moments where you see something you have not seen before and you sit there thinking “how on earth can I have missed that?”

It was after watching a short clip where Armitage explains where the ideas came from for writing the poem and he says that he was a ‘follower’ like me, of the Punk movement in the late 1970s. We are of similar age after all. I suddenly remembered the age old use of the ‘aside’ in acting, the point where an actor stands on stage, looks to the left or the right and then says something softly, or sotto vocce [I think] and under the breath, before coming back to the audience with the rest of his/her lines.

I think, after seeing the video, that throughout the poem, Armitage is talking to the children in the back of the car, maybe his young daughter and a friend, who shriek as the punk “slathers” all over their windscreen in an act of defiance and possibly drunken stupor. But, the last two lines are indicative of him then turning his attention inwards on himself and saying them to himself, like the aside, as he says to himself that he should think back to when he was a lad and fond of the music, as I was, and remember those heady days and how we felt we were everything the leaders of our country hated and could not understand.

This man in the poem still dresses and looks the part 25 years on from 1979 [so this sets the date of the poem to 2004] and still holds to the anarchic styles and attitudes, whereas Armitage is now married [presumably] with a daughter and a home and everything that middle class suburbia brings. And it is this that any true Punk would baulk at, would hate in someone like Armitage [and myself]. This, if we take the ending of the poem like this, is Armitage telling himself to remember and to think that he was one of the ‘Punks’ that blended into society and then vanished through the cracks. Like him, I now see those last two lines as extremely evocative and critical towards self.

Try getting this lot into any exam response, if your exam title allows it. Here, below, is the video clip.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/clips/zfknvcw

Some of you will have to study literature that is deemed ‘Gothic.’ Somewhere, on this blog, there is a page that mentions this type of literature. It mentions all of the usual elements contained therein.

Here though, is a trailer to a film coming out that does what my earlier post does, but in the acted movie format.

WARNING: Only watch if you are strong minded. For me, it is not that bad but if yours is an imagination of the ‘active’ variety, choose not to watch. Then find the typed page on here.

The Blackbird of Glanmore’ by Seamus Heaney

On the grass when I arrive,
Filling the stillness with life,
But ready to scare off
At the very first wrong move.
In the ivy when I leave.

It’s you, blackbird, I love.

I park, pause, take heed.
Breathe. Just breathe and sit
And lines I once translated
Come back: “I want away
To the house of death, to my father

Under the low clay roof.”

And I think of one gone to him,
A little stillness dancer –
Haunter-son, lost brother –
Cavorting through the yard,
So glad to see me home,

My homesick first term over.

And think of a neighbour’s words
Long after the accident:
“Yon bird on the shed roof,
Up on the ridge for weeks –
I said nothing at the time

But I never liked yon bird.”

The automatic lock
Clunks shut, the blackbird’s panic
Is shortlived, for a second
I’ve a bird’s eye view of myself,
A shadow on raked gravel

In front of my house of life.

Hedge-hop, I am absolute
For you, your ready talkback,
Your each stand-offish comeback,
Your picky, nervy goldbeak –
On the grass when I arrive,

In the ivy when I leave.

Analysis

There are times in life you never forget and I have one that in its entirety, is immense. In 2000, my wife and I, along with 200 others of course, were privileged to have a sit down dinner with the late, great Seamus Heaney at the 2000 Whitbread Book Awards annual dinner and presentation of the book awards. Somewhere on this blog there is a poem called ‘Meeting Seamus’ and although he was sat on a different table to my wife and I, and because I was just too damned nervous to go up to him and say hello, I remember feeling that just the chance to be with the rich and famous is something was the best thing ever and is something that I will never forget. Read the poem and see what I felt and why I feel Heaney is one of the greatest writers we have ever produced. His poetry has an element of place in it throughout.

The first Heaney poem I ever taught was ‘Digging,’ where we feel the earth around us as we read. This poem is no different and as I remember this great man, I do so with a certain sense of pride. For this poem is set in a wonderful setting, hence its placing in the section of the anthology called Place. This is a poem that shares his love of nature from the very first line where we feel the “grass” underneath our feet as we share in his journey. As he arrives he feels the grass “filling the stillness with life.” It is as though the very essence of nature is all around him and when one considers his countryside background as a young man we see why he loved it so much. For him, this is a special place, but also a place of sadness, as we see later. He is viewing a blackbird as it goes about its business and is immediately aware of the fact that one “wrong move” will cause the bird to fly off. He shows his love for nature in the presence of this “blackbird,” that he loves to see. For him, this is a symbol of what is right in the countryside and in the towns. This is nature at its best. This place is a snapshot of heaven.

This is the returning young man being remembered when he returned from his first term or semester away from home. The poem shows how when he was younger he did not have the same kind of liking that he has now for that which we call home. As he returns, he parks and does what would be natural, to “park, pause, take heed.” It is that sort of moment when we return to somewhere in our past, where we pause and reflect on how that place has shaped us and made us into the person we are now. I live away from my home town now so I know what this is like, and for a long time, I hated going back, to see family, but the years have turned the wheel of my life and now I see how that town has shaped and moulded me into the person I am now. This is what Heaney is reflecting on, autobiographically sharing a moment in his life.

He breathes and sits in his car, pondering on this place of old and decides that he wants, in another man’s words, to be “away to the house of death, to my father under the low clay roof.” This is where his brother is now laying, in death, like a leader who lays in state for the people to come and mourn. In Heaney’s earlier life his brother died and this therefore, is a memory and a poem written to share the he feels as if there is a sense of loss as he remembers, like “a little stillness dancer,” his “lost” brother who used to cavort “through the yard” when he was always so “glad to see [him] home.” This is dated to the end of his first term at school when he was young so is a memory of place, something we do with places, where we associate good or bad things to a certain place.

By now the reader is aware of the structural aspect of this poem, the mixture of five line stanzas and one line stanzas but the reader automatically sees the poet as he reminisces on the cruelty of life. And the use of the blackbird, almost a symbol of the thing that separates humanity from the animal world, is brought together as we see that there was an “accident” that took the life of his brother. That blackbird “on the shed roof” in his memory is the symbol used to link place to life and also to death. In the past we see that he “never liked yon bird.” Whilst this is a factual moment in the poem it also shows how one person can hate something at one point in their life and then love something later on.

As the poem continues, we hear “the automatic lock” as it “clunks shut” and how “the blackbird’s panic is short lived,” We see how Heaney sees this as something that represents the finality of death as he remembers his brother. And the poet then adds that “for a second” he has a “bird’s eye view” of himself, as a “shadow on raked gravel In front of [his] house of life.” There is a romance in his words here, a magic that transcends normal language, a way of seeing the world through a unique set of eyes, helping him to paint this picture in our minds of both place and person. Thinking of that bird, he recounts how he was with his brother, as if the bird has almost taken the place of his brother in that moment as it does a  “hedge-hop,” just like his brother when alive, how he was always ready with a riposte, as brothers are, a “talkback” and his “standoffish comeback.” It is clear that here, he is remembering the personality of the brother and sees elements of him in this blackbird.

What is clear here is that he misses the relationship he once had with his brother. He has seen the sort of pain that a young boy should not see and this has formulated itself into the words of this poem. This resonates so well with me, for I lost a Grandmother at the age of five and never got over the loss until when in my mid 40s I visited her grave for the first time. Maybe, if I had written a poem shortly after, my poem would sound similar as I use something in nature to remember my lost Grandmother? This is what is happening here. If we take this to be the truth behind the poem we see a man recollecting the life and impact of a brother, using something in nature to bring back to life once again, the brother he lost so long ago. This is the wonder of the words we speak and their ability to bring something long gone back to life. Such is the beauty of the English language.

There is a task that can come up in coursework or exam and it is where you are asked to use the title of a poem in the anthology and use it as the basis for a piece of creative writing.

Now, if this was me sitting there in the exam, my creative juices would start to flow like mad, so I share now a story from my family history. My Great Great Grandfather served in the British Royal Navy as a Stoker in 1853 and was awarded the VC, the highest medal for bravery. But he was a German [or Swedish, we are not sure] which makes it possible that I may have German relatives now called Johannsen or some other such surname living in Germany. Using that knowledge and an idea that has sat in my mind for some time, I created this piece that follows, within the time limit for the exam. Enjoy. Watch how it unfolds until the sucker punch at the end. That ending is designed to make the reader think “oh I did not expect that!”

FUTILITY – A MONOLOGUE FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A SOLDIER IN THE TRENCHES IN WW1.

At the heart of mankind there is a sadness now for we are at war for yet another Christmas, yet another moment when man pits himself against man, when hatred and dislike appear to be more important than love and peace. Oh, we imagine a time when once again we will walk tall, rise up out of this muddy trench and sing our songs and anthems once again, but that day seems a long way off now, like some ethereal existence that eludes and evades us. This is the life that we are resigned to, the futility that we expect, hoping to be able to sit out this horrible war without getting shot, or worse.

The rats are the biggest danger now. They seem to be everywhere, rummaging around the dead and decaying corpses, hunting for that morsel of meat that will last them yet another festering night. We see them on a daily basis now, since the last barrage of artillery landed and blew everything to hell. Now, where there was grass and flowers, rises only the ruby red poppy in the summer. They seem to reflect the blood that has been shed. Other than that, nothing grows here any more, not even the hope that used to exist within our hearts.

Oh the Generals come round and they say how well we are doing, how good and fine a soldier we are, how smart our uniforms look, considering the hell that we live through each day. They ask us about how the enemy seem to be withering under the onslaught of daily bombardment and we give out our stock response of how proud we are to be here, fighting this battle, but what we do not tell them is that really, truthfully, we want to be elsewhere. We want to be home and as far away from this bloody mess that we can. This is a war that will never end.

It is Christmas now and so we sing our songs of when the Christ child was born, to help us bring back some semblance of normality to these trenches. We sing of a Saviour and hope that sooner, rather than later, the shelling will stop. And when it does, the sense of relief is palpable. We hear from across No Man’s Land, the faint strains of the enemy as they join in the song. We cannot remember who began this song of hope, this ode to a child, but we know and understand each other in this time of woe.

What is this all for, we ask, as we sit under the moon, sharing the frozen frost that glistens on every breath. What is it all for, this war to end all wars? Is it for the land that we so crave? Have we become so entrenched in a land locked battle that we cannot see the woods for the trees any more? Trees, now there is a thought, for many of them are now decimated under the barrage of shell and the shock to the ground. There is not a piece of land left with a tree round here, for miles. All we see is desolation. All we see is despair. All we see is death and decay!

But wait, what is that we hear? Across the barricades we hear the sound of a soft trumpet and it is not one used to sound an attack. No, this one is softer, more harmonious, more melodic, like the strains of a bird on a spring morning, singing its marvellous tune to its creator. No, this is better than that. This is greater than any song. This, in this time of war, is a symbol of hope, a metaphor for living, a truly beautiful sensation that drifts across the land between us. This is their song of Christmas, their words, not ours. This is the embodiment of what it means to have a silent night and there is not a thing I can think of but how beautiful those words sound in another language than mine.

I wonder sometimes, who might be in those trenches across from me. I remember my father telling of his Grandfather and how he served in the Navy. I remember how he stayed there in that country and brought up a family, how that family prospered and now, are relatives of mine. I think now of the possibility of one of my cousins being perched on that opposing trench and I do not want to fight any more. I do not want to be the one to kill one of my brothers. God forbid that I should be the one to do that! After all, I do have my pride in my homeland. I do have my family to think of and I do have the pride of the whole German people resting on my shoulders!

Of Mice and Men – A Creative Writing Exercise

When looking on my ‘stats’ page, I noticed someone had put something specific into Google, or some other such search engine. What they had added in was “Of Mice and Men takes its title from an old Scottish poem. Use an idea from a poem [to create your own unique piece of writing].” The last part in brackets is a guess at what the end said for it faded out on my page.

This got me thinking, how would someone go about creating this piece of writing? It also got me thinking how that first choice would be made. The thing is, that there are millions of poems out there that you could choose. So, from a teacher’s perspective, I find this task very intriguing indeed.

So, how would you create this?

The answer is not that complicated,, especially if by now, you have pulled your hair out trying to figure it out. The first thing to do is choose the poem. You might be thinking that is easier said than done, but I would advise going with a favourite poem, or choosing what you would write about and then see if there is a poem out there to use for this purpose. The aim is NOT to write a story that follows the same plot of the poem.

So, if I was doing this, I would use this plan:

1. Choose the poem – keep it simple; go for the famous poems.
2. Notice that the task says use an idea, not a title, for your writing.
3. When the theme is chosen, then plan the writing.
4. Plan it paragraph by paragraph, writing the first line of each paragraph first.
5. Then see how you can develop that into a completed task.
6. Then write the thing in rough, or type it, to have a ‘first go’ at the thing.
7. When you are done, revise it, making suitable changes, to improve it.
8. And then, if it is to be a Controlled Assessment, create a plan from your writing.
9. Now, you are ready to complete the thing on the day.

So, here are a few ideas off the top of my head.

1. Sonnet 18 – A description of a beautiful summer’s day – your choice where.
2. Hunchback in the Park – A Day In The Life Of……A Vagrant.
3. Salome – A story that shows a passion from one person to the next.
4. Futility – A monologue from the point of view of a soldier in the trenches. Do a German soldier to make it unique. Maybe involve the Christmas Day footie match? If it was me, I would have a story where a British soldier makes friends with a German soldier only to find they are related [this may have happened in my Grandfather’s Somme experience].
5. Digging – Seamus Heaney poem about his father – write a letter from a father to a child. The Dad knows he is dying so he puts his feelings and emotions down for his child to read after he is dead. You give him some terminal illness and go from there.
6. Praise Song for My Mother – now here is a chance to describe the person who has inspired you the most in your life, whoever that might be, male or female.

Choosing the poem might be as easy as looking through the anthology for a poem. If you choose a war poem, you can then go pro war or anti war. The choices are endless almost. When you have made that choice and the idea is blossoming in your mind, write a plan for the thing. Now the plan structure is up to you. I would write a list out of first lines. These would be first lines of each paragraph, so thinking logically is important here. 5 lines would do it, if you then write 2 paragraphs for each section, you would have 10 paragraphs. If each page has 3 paragraphs, that makes 4 sides of writing [just].

The rest is up to you. Try to use alliteration, similes, lots of adjectives, lots of colour, emotion, description. But above all, enjoy the creation of such a thing. If it is a story it needs to be in past tense [Sean saw no reason for worry]. If it is a description it is present tense [David is the most inspirational person I know….] and in both you can mix some future tense as well [he said he will see how things go before making a decision whether to kill the man or not].

Finally, there is only one thing to say; have some fun with this. If you have a wicked sense of humour, like me, this is where you can be ultra cheeky. Your favourite teacher can end up in your story, but as the villain of the piece, the killer, the stalker, the parasite on the prowl. Anything is possible. Just have fun. That is what writing is all about as far as this English teacher is concerned.

MONOLOGUES – A SHORT GUIDE

Okay, so your teacher asks you to write a monologue. You sit there and think one thing; what is a monologue? Well, the answer is something that is remarkably simple. It is, in effect, a diary entry, but whereas a diary is only to be read by the person writing it, this is meant to be recited, out loud, or read with meaning out loud. It is then, a collection of thoughts from the perspective of a character in a play, or prose, or even a poem. Okay, you think, that does not sound too bad. I can do that. And do you know, that is the best attitude to have. The “I can do that” attitude gets C grade and above, generally speaking.

So how do you write one?

As with any other piece of writing on here or in your exam, or at the moment, for coursework Controlled Assignments, there are stages and the first one is planning. Then, when you have planned it out, you can write it. But how do you plan it? Once again, there are easy ways to do it and my 5 point plan, as shown on other items in this blog, becomes usable in this instance. For example, the Introduction, Point 1, Point 2, Point 3 and conclusion idea works well here.

I hear you begging for an example.

Well here is one. Consider for a moment, the character of Jenett Humphries in Woman In Black, by Susan Hill. If you are not new to this blog, you will know I taught it last year in Leeds. If you were fortunate to see me and be in the classroom at the time, you will know my love for this novella. But you will also know who Jenett Humphries is, for she is the mysterious woman in black. She is the vengeful ghost who steals babies away.

But what do we know about her? Well, once again, go to your notes on the novella and you will see the following:

1. Jenette Humphries was a single mother in a time when it was not acceptable.
2. She had a sister, called Alice Drablow. The sister was married.
3. She was forced to have the child and give it to her sister to bring up.
4. She was made to see her son grow up knowing her as auntie rather than mother.
5. She followed the rules to the letter of the law. But she did not enjoy it.
6. She lived with her sister and brother in law at Eel Marsh House.
7. One day, she saw from the upstairs window something that would change her.
8. She witnessed the death by drowning, of her infant son and his maid.
9. This sent her over the edge because she was planning to escape with the boy.
10. She went mad with grief and died; she came back as the woman in black.
11. She now haunts Eel Marsh House. There is suspicion that she killed her sister.
12. After her sister dies, she haunts the town of Crythin Gifford.
13. It is said that each time someone sees her, a child will be taken and die.
14. When Arthur Kipps arrives to sort out her sister’s papers, he sees the ghost.
15. She haunts Kipps until he is desperate to escape back to London.
16. She kills Kipps’ wife and baby son at the end of the story. That is her revenge!

Now, armed with all that information, you can plan your monologue, which is the woman in black herself, speaking her thoughts out loud. The writing is exactly the same as your teacher will have given you [or should have – if you never did one of these at KS3 then your teacher needs sacking!] in Year 7 when you had to write a diary account from a character’s perspective. This is no different.

But here is where the tricky part hits home – what you write depends on where in the story it has to be placed. If your teacher wants it after the scene in the church with Kipps, then there can be no reference of the haunting of Kipps afterwards in the house, apart from an “I will terrify him when he comes to my house later.” This is because it has not happened yet. Likewise, if your teacher wants it written at the time when she has just killed Kipps’ son and wife then all the details can be added. So, your writing has to be time specific.

Everything has to make sense.

Let’s say it is at the end. How do you plan it? Well, using that 5 point plan, I would suggest the following:

1. I remember the first time I saw that strange young man from London.
2. He had the temerity to live in my house, my family home. How dare he?
3. I then terrified the life out of him [and his little dog too].
4. I caused him to run away, scared for his life. He escaped, or so he thought.
5. He has seen me, so I have to take the child, his newly born son.

You need to get over the idea of her thinking “I cannot have mine, so he is not having his! I will have my revenge.” But be careful with number 3 above, because this is not the Wizard of Oz [sorry,  could not resist that one].

Now, whereas an essay about this novella is written in present tense [Kipps then asks…..] this style of writing is written in past tense, like a story [I taught him a lesson he will never forget]. The key word there is “taught” rather than “teach.” Your task is to get the feelings and emotions of the caracter across to the reader. Be emotional if needs be. Be cold and callous where the need arises. Be wicked or evil, if the character is like that. And above all, have fun doing it.

Be a show off! Show off your brilliant writing skills because this is assessed for spelling, punctuation and grammar!  So, without me writing one up for this blog, which makes it too easy for you, may I now suggest you have a go at one based from a prose text you have read this year. When it is done, add it and leave a message here so it can be added onto the blog by me, or better still, go to the Facebook page and add it there as a note. I look forward to reading your glorious work.

RJ