On giving feedback

I found myself in the position of giving feedback to some writers recently. The writers were teachers who had signed … More

Researching writers’ engagement with teachers: the Teachers as Writers research project

    Along with colleagues from the Arvon Foundation, The Open University and University of Exeter I have just begun … More

Why poetry matters

The value of poetry is that it should matter … first to the writer and then to the reader.  Michael … More

Mike Ferguson reviews Making Poetry Happen

  ‘Making Poetry Happen is a fundamental resource for all English teachers for the way if collates both thinking about … More

Making Poetry Happen

  Announcing the publication of Making Poetry Happen: Transforming the Poetry Classroom (Bloomsbury, 2015). Making Poetry Happen provides a valuable resource … More

Teaching paying attention

Lately I have been pondering the practice of paying attention, vis-à-vis my habit of keeping a notebook to capture impressions, … More

The fame question

When I visit schools to read and talk about poetry there is often some sort of Q and A following … More

Lifesaving Poems: Shel Silverstein’s ‘Not Me’

  I wrote yesterday about pitching poems in the classroom which are aimed not at the crowd but perhaps one … More

Lifesaving Poems: Charles Causley’s ‘Who?’

Who?   Who is that child I see wandering, wandering down by the side of the quivering stream? Why does … More

Lifesaving Poems: Michael Rosen’s ‘Everybody Verybody’

I once saw Michael Rosen teach a theatre full of tearfully happy children and adults these wonderful nonsense word games … More

The Write Team: Creative Writers in Schools

  The Bath Festivals‘ Write Team was a creative writing project designed to develop pupil confidence and engagement in their learning. The … More

Foal Failure

I first came across ‘Birth of the Foal’ at the recommendation of the great Cliff Yates. He told me he’d been … More

Can Poets Teach?: On Writers Teaching Writing -by Joan Houlihan at Poets.org

Like a Jules Verne novel, Dana Gioia’s famous essay “Can Poetry Matter” got the future’s big picture right, but the … More

Why Andrew Motion is my hero

Andrew Motion is my hero because he set up the Poetry Archive with Richard Carrington. He has nothing left to prove. As … More