Tag Archives: Poetry

Duncan and Hunain – Winners!

Well done to all the students from Franciscan College Gormanston who took part in Poetry Aloud at the National Library today. Each student delivered his two poems with skill and passion. The students did themselves proud.

A very special congratulations goes to Duncan Walker and Hunain Saqib who have advanced to the second round of the competition. They were two of only five students who progressed from our heat.

Here are some photos from our day:

 

The Gormanston boys at Poetry Aloud.

 

Duncan Walker – through to second round of Poetry Aloud competition.

 

Hunain Saqib – through to second round of Poetry Aloud competition.

 

We would like to say well done to the other competitors today. Each school should be proud of their students.

Thank you, also, to the National Library of Ireland for hosting the event.

Poetry Aloud competition

Tomorrow, 25th October, 11 students from Franciscan College, Gormanston will take part in the Poetry Aloud competition run by the National Library of Ireland.

The students must recite one prescribed poem and a second poem of their own choice from one of the prescribed anthologies. In the Junior Category the prescribed poem is ‘An Irish Airman Foresees his Death’ by William Butler Yeats and in the Senior Category the prescribed poem is ‘Postscript’ by Seamus Heaney. The second poem recited by the students must come from ‘The Rattlebag’, ‘Lifelines’ or ‘Something Beginning with P’.

The students participating and their poems are as follows:

  • Joe Dunne (5th year) – ‘Timothy Winters’ by Charles Causley
  • Sean Hayes (5th year) – ‘Poor but Honest’ author unknown
  • Sami Iqbal (2nd year) – ‘London’ by William Blake
  • Andres Martinez (2nd year) – ‘Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock’ by Wallace Stevens
  • Conor McCormack (2nd year) – ‘Child’s Song’ by Robert Lowell
  • Olamide Okusaga (1st year) – ‘John Mouldy’ by Walter de la Mare
  • Conor O’Sullivan (2nd year) – ‘Dahn the Plug’ole’ author unknown
  • Sean Power (1st year) – ‘John Mouldy’ by Walter de la Mare
  • Hunain Saqib (5th year) – ‘The Tyger’ by William Blake
  • Robert Tully (5th year) – ‘Poor but Honest’ author unknown
  • Duncan Walker (5th year) – ‘Out, Out -‘ by Robert Frost

These students have worked very hard to learn these poems and practise reciting them with passion and emotion. We wish them the best of luck tomorrow and hope that their hard work will pay off!

Noel Monahan’s visit to Franciscan College Gormanston

What a wonderful visit we had today from the poet Noel Monahan!

Noel spoke with 1st and 2nd year students about his poetry and his life as a poet. He described his idea of ‘wordfarming’ and how he gets his inspiration to write his poetry. We were given the treat of a reading of his poems ‘The Funeral Game’, ‘All Day Long’ and ‘Drumlins’.

Students were encouraged to ask questions and Noel was incredibly generous with his in-depth answers and descriptions.

Noel explained about the poetry competitions run by Windows Publications and we certainly hope that some of our students have been inspired by him to put pen to paper! We will be keeping a keen eye on the Windows Publications website to find out all of the details about this competition. The website is:

http://windowspublications.com

Here are some photos of Noel with our students:

 

Visit from Noel Monahan

The English Department is eagerly awaiting tomorrow’s visit from poet Noel Monahan! He will speak with first and second year students about life as a poet, where he gets his inspiration from and how he approaches the craft of poetry writing.

His collections of poetry include ‘Curse of the Birds’, ‘Curve of the Moon’ and ‘The Funeral Game’.

We will post tomorrow about how things went!

Poetry Aloud – Learning a Poem

Good luck to the students who have entered the Poetry Aloud 2013 Competition. The seniors are busy working on their set poem ‘Postscript’ by Seamus Heaney as well as their selected poem. In order to memorise a poem, the most traditional and fool-proof method is repetition – first line by line, then two lines together and so on. Here is a slideshow of ‘Postscript’, with various words and phrases missing at different points in the poem, that might help seniors memorise the poem. Make your own slideshow of another poem, if you think this method is helpful.
Postscript – Learn It!

Sonnets, Shakespeare and Iambic Pentameter

While studying the poetry of  Shakespeare, we are becoming familiar with the sonnet form. At the moment we are focussing on one of the most famous love poems of all time: Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 often referred to by its first line, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” It is a beautiful poem written to the Fair Youth dealing with the loveliness of the beloved, the effect time has on all and the power of poetry to immortalise the beloved. This is captured n 14 lines written in iambic pentameter and following a strict rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg.

Let’s refresh ourselves on what iambic pentameter is. In simple terms it is a line of verse with ten syllables grouped into pairs. Each pair of syllables has one soft and one strong beat.  Each pair is called an IAMB and there FIVE pairs – that’s why each line of 5 pairs is called IAMBIC PENTAMETER.  The rhythm in each line sounds like:

ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM
Here are some famous lines written in iambic pentameter:
If music be the food of love , play on.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
You’ll notice that each pair of syllables is made up of one unstressed and one stressed beat (ba-BUM).
Here are some good attempts by students at the college of iambic pentameter: Here is Jasper’s quatrain:
“Everyone wants to go out for fun
Wanna see the clouds, trees, and the nice sky
To play golf or take a bath in the sun
Go high above the trees and clouds and fly!”
Super work Jasper and great rhyme scheme!
Dennis also wrote a quatrain, while Jaime went full steam ahead and wrote an entire sonnet in iambic pentameter following the correct rhyme scheme!
Dennis’s Quatrain
  

Jaime’s Sonnet

Poetry Aloud 2012

Poetry Aloud 2012

Poetry Aloud is an annual poetry speaking competition open to all post-primary students on the island of Ireland. It is organised by Poetry Ireland and the National Library of Ireland. It is divided into three categories: Junior – 1st and 2nd Years, Intermediate – 3rd and 4th Years, Senior – 5th and 6th Years. Participants from must recite two poems from the list provided. Regional heats take place between 15th and 26th October all around the country. The deadline for entries is Wednesday 26th September. This is a fantastic opportunity for all students at Franciscan College Gormanston. Ask your English teacher for more information.

Bruce Ismay ‘After the Titanic’

One of the people who will forever be associated with Titanic is Bruce Ismay, owner of the White Star Line that made the ship. He was on the maiden voyage and, of course, survived the tragedy. His fate his sympathetically described by Derek Mahon in the poem ‘After the Titanic’:

  They said I got away in a boat
And humbled me at the inquiry. I tell you
  I sank as far that night as any
Hero. As I sat shivering on the dark water
  I turned to ice to hear my costly
Life go thundering down in a pandemonium of
  Prams, pianos, sideboards, winches,
Boilers bursting and shredded ragtime. Now I hide
  In a lonely house behind the sea
Where the tide leaves broken toys  and hatboxes
  Silently at my door. The showers of
April, flowers of May mean nothing to me, nor the
  Late light of June, when my gardener
Describes to strangers how the old man stays in bed
  On seaward mornings after nights of
Wind, takes his cocaine and will see no one. Then it is
  I drown again with all those dim
Lost faces I never understood, my poor soul
  Screams out in the starlight, heart
Breaks loose and rolls down like a stone.
  Include me in your lamentations.

His life after Titanic is described in an article written by Rosita Boland in the Irish Times of 7th April 2012. Follow this link to read the article:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2012/0407/1224314477281.html

If your time and interest stretch to reading a whole book on the topic then it is worth looking at Frances Wilson’s biography ‘How to Survive the Titanic or The Sinking of Bruce Ismay’.

‘The Convergence of the Twain’ by Thomas Hardy

With the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic coming up, here is the text of Thoma Hardy’s poem about the incident. It was published in 1915 and contrasts the materialism of humankind with the integrity and beauty of nature.

The Convergence of the Twain
by Tomas Hardy

I
In a solitude of the sea
Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

II
Steel chambers, late the pyres
Of her salamandrine fires,
Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

III
Over the mirrors meant
To glass the opulent
The sea-worm crawls – grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

IV
Jewels in joy designed
To ravish the sensuous mind
Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

V
Dim moon-eyed fishes near
Gaze at the gilded gear
And query ‘What does this vaingloriousness down here?’ . . .

VI
Well, while was fashioning
This creature of cleaving wing,
The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

VII
Prepared a sinister mate
For her – so gaily great –
A Shape of Ice, for the time so far and dissociate.

VII
And as the smart ship grew
In stature, grace and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

IX
Alien they seemed to be;
No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history,

X
Or sign that they were bent
By paths coincident
On being twin halves of one august event,

XI
Til the Spinner of the Years
Said ‘Now!’ And each one hears,
And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.