‘Doing Things With Poems’ by Julie Blake and Tim Shortis, 70.1 (2018)
A reflection on six years of the Poetry By Heart poetry recitation competition, with a view from Kathryn McAllister, a teacher whose school has participated in PBH since the competition’s inception:
Verses are given new life through new interpretations and pupils practise skills that have served scholars for centuries. During this period around the school we hear pupils rapping familiar verse in the playground, singing and sometimes dancing refrains and strains of poetry and perhaps most importantly, enjoying English literature as a living subject.
