THE MagazIne OF THE NEW ZealanD POETRY SOCIETY JULY 2012 ISBN 1178-3931 aTe Hungafine Tito Ruri o Aotearoa line a lame, embarrassing, rhyming thing Liz Breslin NEW ZEALAND POETRY SOCIETY Primary school kids and poetry go together like Tim Tams and a cup of tea. My Te Hunga Tito Ruri o Aotearoa two estimate that about half their writing time is spent on poems; that doesn’t include reading them. Lucky, lucky things. But fast forward to High School and NEW ZealanD POETRY SOCIETY poetry is less of a daily art form and more of a ‘lame, embarrassing rhyming thing, PO BOX 5283 right?’ Not my words, those ... LAMBTON Quay At our 2011 Poetic Justice Youth Slam there were double figures in the WellIngTON 6145 under-nines, an impressive line-up in the 9-14 year olds and one single solitary PATROns player in the 15-19 age group. An easy win for Eleanor. So what happens? Does Dame Fiona Kidman puberty bring a poetry bypass? To be fair, I cringe when I revisit most of the Vincent O’Sullivan teenage poems I wrote, but it was a great outlet at the time. Last year I spent some interesting weeks teaching poetry at high schools. PRESIDENT / NATIONAL COORDINATOR Laurice Gilbert Teaching in the loosest sense: I was working with the gifted and talented, or especially differently smart classes, or however they’re named these days. I get EMAIL:
[email protected] confused. They were great kids. And I was greatly relieved not to have to be a www.poetrysociety.org.nz proper teacher.