ABSTRACT
The concept of ‘poetry’ there Is an argument for saying that of all the different forms and uses of language, it is poetry which is the most natural. This may seem to be a strange and controversial claim because one of the characteristic features of poetry, that it is language at its most dense and aesthetically crafted, seems to suggest the opposite view. However, our earliest experiences of language as children could be said to be primarily poetic. A child takes a delight in sounds, rhythms, rhymes, images and textures without being particularly concerned with propositional meaning. The point is made convincingly by Mattenklott (1996: 13):
Young children, without being obsessed by rationality or logic, find pleasure in repetitions, the articulation of sounds and the way words create powerful images; they are not too concerned why it is that the little boy down the lane should need a bag of wool, nor why the dish decided to run away with the spoon. As Preen (1999) has pointed out, children do not ask, in response to ‘Humpty Dumpty’, why on a wall, why not a fence? They respond implicitly to the ‘paired contrasts . . . the rise of the first line opposed to the cadence and anticlimax of the second; the galloping third line balanced by the braking to a halt of the heavily stressed last line’ (ibid.: 1). It is a delicate pedagogical challenge to ensure that explicit knowledge enhances rather then detracts from enjoyment and appreciation. This is as true of poetry teaching as it is of other aspects of English.
