Benjamin Zephaniah:
On school visits he reads the kids Romantic poetry and asks them to locate it within the framework of modern music lyrics. "We might have a discussion in which a kid says, well, I think Keats would be like a Morrissey figure, moaning and groaning about how ill he is. And Shelley would be like Jagger, smashing up hotel rooms, and Byron would be like the misogynist, like Eminem, with a limp, hee hee. I'm trying to get the kids to think how to be poetic. Or I might say to them, you're a bad motherfucking gangsta rapper and you're in love with this bitch. Now I want you to write a poem without using any of those words. And don't use the word love. Simple things. They're not academic. They're instinct."
This entry was posted by eeksypeeksy
on Tuesday, September 14, 2004 at 8:23 AM.
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