RECENT COMMENTS

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

prison alphabet

At first I thought- well, this is a strong contender for the dumbest use of a highlight pen in a school or university text award.



(Having once seen a history textbook in the library with 5 entire pages green-highlighted, nothing surprises me)
But further thought (and the annotation) suggests it's a script for a school presentation.
Still, I think I would have photocopied before striping my book.



(Update The poem is from Sometimes Gladness. Collected Poems of Bruce Dawe 1954-1997
5th Edition (Longman, 1997)
The teaching of poetry in schools is, after all, variously done, sometimes good, sometimes not so good. BD

8 comments:

Tony said...

It was the school bad boy crossing of his to-do list. Next: will not be told.

Tony said...

As in; I will not be told there are two effs in off.

boynton said...

Sometimes Badness

Ann ODyne said...

thanks for the link to the divine BD. brains are so sexy.
I have serious crushes on Clive James and Stuart Littlemore, Andrew Denton and Mr John Clarke.

as BD says at the link
"there is a desire for the transcendent in human beings which will manifest itself, willy-nilly"
and I think he's transcendent alright.

I had a conversation with him once (1987), standing in a crowd at The Continental in Greville St, waiting for Kinky Friedman to perform ... and I was enjoying myself intensely until I said to him "you look familiar. have I met you before?"

(cringe)

Tony said...

Anne, your writing looks familiar. have I read you before?

boynton said...

I found this Age article along the way, Ann, on BD and Paul Kelly ...
Although I'd seen Kelly play many times, I've only seen Dawe once, at a reading at the Carringbush Library in the early 1980s. I asked a question about the writing process and he replied with an analogy about repairing and assembling motorbikes

(and brains are ok but a kind heart is sexier than a big brain anyday, eh?)

Anonymous said...

Fuck this poem

Anonymous said...

No swearing please