A DIFFERENT STORY:
Poems From the Past Selected by Michael Rosen

Michael Rosen, the highly acclaimed poet, writer and anthologiser, has made a selection of pre-twentieth century poems showing his usual instinct for appealing to pupils with poems that are fresh, exciting and often surprising.

This new collection of pre-twentieth century poetry is not just a re-anthologising of the same old well-known and 'worthy' poets and poems, which are presented in anthologies as 'great' and 'important'. It challenges fixed notions about what is poetry, what is 'English' poetry and what is the best poetry, presenting a range of poems over hundreds of years that, for a variety of reasons, have been hidden from view. Some of the work was hidden because the poets were women, some were poor, some were regarded as subversive. Some of the poems were part of an oral tradition, never recorded in books. The collection presents the lively, engaging, witty, tragic, thoughtful, passionate writing of poets who are un-famous (like peasants, miners, or tombstone makers), or recently 'discovered' poets (like Aphra Behn, the playwright, novelist, poet and spy), or poems by famous poets (like Swift or Defoe) which do not appear in the usual anthologies.

The poems have been selected to appeal to a wide ability range in both KS3 and KS4. The anthology includes notes on the page to support pupils' reading, suggested classroom activities on individual poems, comparative work on poems and approaches to the anthology as a whole, such as ways of dipping into the anthology, making one's own selection and ideas for performance and class readings. The activities, devised by the English and Media Centre, are designed to bring the poems to life through active engagement with the text, group work, oral work and pupils' own writing around the poems. A variety of close reading strategies are suggested. Ideas for written work, both creative and critical, are woven into the activities.

Paperback 124 pages • ISBN: 0 907016 05 7 • 5.25


"... it challenges the tyranny of a system in which narrow prescription betrays children as surely as it constrains teachers. The 19th Century slaves' cry for freedom:
    'Got one mind for the boss to see,
    Got another mind for what I know is me'
is curously topical. The great canon must be taught. A Different Story puts it into a wider context in which teachers and children become questioning and creative."
Jill Pirrie, TES.


 CITY LINES

An anthology of poems written by young people for the Centre's poetry competition. The collection is divided into six sections: 'Me & You', 'Part of the Family', 'School', 'City Life', 'The Future' and 'Imaginings'. Included are the authors' comments on their poems and the collection is illustrated by photographs. The vigour, commitment and range of these young London voices have a direct and special appeal for all KS3 and KS4 pupils. This anthology often provides the models and the inspiration for pupils' own poetry writing.

A5 paperback 112 pages • ISBN: 0 907016 02 2 • £3.95


YESTERDAY TODAY TOMORROW

An anthology of forty-seven poems, mainly by women and about the experience of women. They are powerful and vital poems which speak directly to the concerns and experiences of Year 10 pupils and above. Poets include Grace Nichols, Liz Lochhead, Y. Yevtushenko, Andrei Voznesensky, Michelene Wandor and Sylvia Plath.

A5 paperback 80 pages • ISBN: 0 708599 59 1 • £3.95


YESTERDAY TODAY TOMORROW:
ACTIVITIES BOOKLET

This booklet contains a useful range of strategies for engaging pupils actively with the poems. The ideas for classroom work are laid out so as to be easily implemented in classrooms. They include sequencing and cloze activities, close language work, reading and writing poems and speeches, strategies for annotating poems, worksheets for reading and discussing a poem, suggestions for work on groups of poems as well as background reading to supplement particular poems on the Suffragettes, Harriet Tubman and Sexual Harassment.

A4 24 pages • ISBN: 0 907016 50 2 • £4.25


THE POETRY PACK
Exploring Poems at GCSE and A Level

Teachers often feel that it's hard to make poetry interesting, accessible and enjoyable for their pupils. There is no shortage of anthologies but the problem is devising lessons or sequences of work that build up confidence and pleasure whilst enabling students to engage in active reading and writing around poetry.

This collection of classroom activities is a photocopiable resource, for both GCSE and A Level, that aims to meet this need, offering challenging and differentiated work for GCSE pupils and bridging the gap between GCSE and A Level. Whilst some activities are suitable for mixed ability GCSE classes, others offer more demanding material for A Level classes.

The activities provide active and enjoyable critical approaches to poetry. They encourage an interplay between reading and writing poems. Some activities are short single lesson ideas while others provide a sequence of lessons, with fully developed written outcomes. The poems themselves span different centuries and cultures: from Tennyson, Donne and Christina Rossetti to John Hegley, Carol Ann Duffy and Jean Binta Breeze. Some familiar poems are approached from a fresh angle, with new ideas for 'ways in' or different kinds of written outcomes. There are also contemporary voices, like those of Moniza Alvi, Lavinia Greenlaw or Paul Durcan, whose work is not yet widely anthologised for schools.

The aim is to offer teachers a rich source of poems and a wide repertoire of classroom strategies for exploring poetry in the classroom. The teachers' notes support the activities and explain the thinking behind them but also point up ways of adapting the strategies for future use.

Written & edited by Barbara Bleiman.

A4 photocopiable ring-binder, 160 pages • ISBN: 0 907016 11 1 • £39.50


"A banquet ... delicious ways with poetry ... the emphasis thoughout is on getting pupils to examine language closely and by so doing to learn how to enjoy poetry for themselves. Bon appetit!"
Arnold Evans TES. 23.6.95.


THE POETRY VIDEO

This video, containing over 50 poetry readings, includes many poems from The Poetry Pack and acts as a complementary classroom resource, bringing the poems to life with high quality readings by living poets and actors. It goes beyond The Poetry Pack in offering more poems by selected poets and additional visual material to support the readings.

Features
  • Highly acclaimed actors Juliet Stevenson, Michael Pennington, Stella Gonet and Greg Wise in studio readings and performances that can be used as a teaching tool in the classroom.
  • A way of exploring poetry in the classroom using performances and readings, to bring poems to life and open up different meanings and interpretations.
  • Some of today's most interesting poets representing a range of cultures, talk about their poetry and perform their own poems, giving students a chance to hear their voices and their thoughts about particular poems and poetry in general.
  • Provides direct access to well-established set text poets like Gillian Clarke, Carol Ann Duffy and Tony Harrison.
  • Readings of key pre-twentieth century poets including poems by Blake, Browning, Donne, Christina Rossetti, Marvell and Wordsworth.
  • The readers present the poems straight to camera, in a mixture of readings from the text and performances. The title sequences include images that illuminate aspects of the poems.
  • Many poems and poets are included on current A Level and GCSE syllabuses.
  • Some complete sections of The Poetry Pack, such as the 'Wordsworth Reading Trail' and 'In an Artist's Studio' are featured, providing a sequence of poems and images to support the teaching of a whole unit of work.
  • Likely contents at the time of going to press are listed below. (* Included in The Poetry Pack.)

      Tony Harrison (A Level set poet) reading:
      Initial Illumination*
      Them & [uz]
      National Trust
      Illuminations
      The Icing Hand
      Background Material

      Gillian Clarke (A Level set poet) reading:
      Miracle on St. David's Day*
      Jac Codi Baw
      No Hands
      Siege
      Login
      Lament

      Moniza Alvi reading:
      The Sari*
      I Would Like to be a Dot in a Painting by Miro
      Arrival 1946
      On Finding a Letter to Mrs Vickers on the Pennine Way
      An Unknown Girl

      Dannie Abse reading:
      Cricket Ball*
      Emperors of the Island
      Pathology of Colours
      In the Theatre
      Talking to Blake

      Jean 'Binta' Breeze reading:
      Spring Cleaning*, I Poet*, Current Notes, This Train, Third World Blues (for Grenada) and Lovin' Was'n Easy. Also: The Tiger, The Lamb by William Blake, This is the Dark Time, My Love by Martin Carter*, Rock-Stone Dance by Merle Collins* and Homecoming Anse La Raye by Derek Walcott*

      Maura Dooley reading:
      History*
      The A Road
      Mansize
      Six Filled the Woodshed with Soft Cries
      Apple Pie in Pizzaland

      Stella Gonet reading:
      Standing Female Nude by Carol Ann Duffy*
      At the National Gallery by Judith Kazantzis*
      In an Artist's Studio by Christina Rosetti*
      An Answer to a Love-Letter by Mary Wortley Montagu*

      Michael Pennington reading:
      My Last Duchess by Robert Browning*
      A Poison Tree by William Blake*
      Daffodils by William Wordsworth*

      Juliet Stevenson reading:
      Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy*
      Lady, Weeping at the Crossroads by W.H. Auden*
      An Extract from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal*
      Why Dorothy Wordsworth is Not as Famous as Her Brother by Lynne Peters*

      Greg Wise reading:
      To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell*
      A Lecture Upon The Shadow by John Donne*
      The Arnolfini Marriage by Paul Durcan*

Duration approx. 150 minutes • Video only: £24.95

The Poetry Pack and Video: £55.00