ABSTRACT
This note, adapted from an article I wrote in Wilson (1988) and also corrected, is included especially for teachers who are passionate about poetry themselves; who are brothers and sisters in the mystery; who have learned poetry by heart. It has become clearer and clearer to me over the years how unusual a passion for poetry is, how strange it seems to most people, teachers included. I mentioned a book of poems that I had written to an education officer, and he held his hands up, palms outwards, in desperate defence, practically calling for garlic. He probably felt, along with Nigel Molesworth, that ‘Poetry is sissy stuff that rhymes’ (Willans and Searle 1958) or that it had a kind of dubious magic. Most people are negative about poetry. ‘Poetry’s unnat’ral; no man ever talked poetry ’cept a beadle on Boxing Day’ (Pickwick Papers).
