ABSTRACT
Being able to choose suitable poetry for the classroom is an acquired art for most people. Each failure to find really suitable material makes it more difficult to gain the willing attention of the class next time. The older the pupil the less resilient does he become to disappointment. The most elaborately conceived introductions are wasted; and after a time one senses that a class that will listen with real interest while one introduces a topic will ‘switch off’ when the topic itself is reached. The problem when choosing material is to find the good single poem. Clear imagery is something far more difficult to obtain, largely because the adult approach to imagery is more reasoned than a child’s, though rarely so reasonable. In children’s own work the images are frequent and immediate. This is because they are images, they are visual; they represent an immediate fusing of two objects, uncomplicated by convention, unworried by any possible charge of plagiarism.
