Poetry: how do we get the kids turned on to it?

 

IMAGINE Believe Achieve. Hodgson’s motto perfectly sums up Mike Garry, the award-winning Manchester Poet. The academy was delighted to host this high-profile, passionate poet on Tuesday 7^th October. He had only just returned a day earlier from California, where he had been touring with famous modern classical composer Philip Glass.
Mike shared his passion for reading during workshops conducted for students throughout the day. He told how his love of language had been inspired by a primary teacher. He used nursery rhymes and song lyrics to show how poetry is all around us. He told students: “Get poetry and literature in your life and you will grow. Read poems – they sometimes have as much information in them as a whole novel.”
The day culminated in an amazing poetry reading by Mike in the afternoon, infront of an audience of 180 students from Hodgson, Blackpool Aspire Academy, Montgomery Academy, St George’s Academy and Blackpool Sixth Form College. Mrs Tingey, Lead Practitioner – Teaching and Learning, who organised Mike’s visit, said: ‘It was absolutely riveting. The feedback from the students and colleagues has been fantastic. They keep asking me when Mike is coming back!’
Mike is a permanent support act of famous punk poet John Cooper Clarke. Mike’s most famous works include Penny For a Guy, The Threads That Weave and What Me Mam Taught Me, and he is renowned for his blog Godisamanc.