Poetry - making sense of life

The power of words

After a year’s study of English Lit. I hope you have got switched on to the power of words. Words shape our culture, they define how we think – and when they have been carefully crafted by a poet, they have an amazing power to crystallise an emotion or situation.

The BBC has been running a significant range of programmes in its recent poetry season. One strand is ‘My life in verse’

• Last week Cerys Matthews (Catatonia) talked about the influence of the poetry and lyrics she heard around her as she grew up, and how that led to her own self expression
• The week before, Robert Mitchell (Peep Show, Mitchell and Webb) revealed how TS Eliot’s Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock connected with his sense of alienation after the death of his mother

Open up your mind

Now the revision season is over you might want to release the pent up concentration and give space to new thoughts.

Why not check out some poems that are not on your course and let the words and images sink into your psyche.

There are loads on the web to browse through and if you get stuck on any images, you can see if the handy explanations at www.crossref-it.info help make sense of it all.

Let the dynamite of poetry blow you away!