Ezra Pound

In the 1960s and 70s, there was a real push for teachers to encourage their students to write poetry.  'Experts' suggested it was useful to provide a skeleton or format and squeeze words into that structure.  The theory was that 'real' poetry would follow.

The haiku was one structure we used and I had some success with that but the main element to teach was the Ezra Pound Couplet'. Based on a 1913 poem by the American poet entitled On the New York Metro.

The apparition of these faces in the crowd; 
petals on a wet, black bough. 

I had very little success with this approach.  My Year 3 students soon sniffed out how pretentious it was.

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