Oh, for the love of poetry!
OVER the past few months, memories of my school days have been coming to my mind. I am very grateful for having had good supervision and guidance then.
Teachers are our guiding lights. The beneficial habits that we develop during our school life continue to guide us for the rest of our lives. For me, it was the habit of reading. Till today, I cannot spend a day without reading.
During my school days, I had a very kind and caring teacher named Mr Ramakanthan. He taught me English and English Literature. From 1961 to 1970, I studied poetry. The books we used were A Junior Anthology Of Poetry for primary level, and A Senior Anthology Of Poetry for secondary classes.
It was interesting how my teacher taught me. He would bring the whole scene to our minds by narrating the poem. For example, for Robert Southey’s The Inchcape Rock ,he helped us to imagine the high tides and the roaring waves. He would stress a few interesting lines and make us feel the wonderful arrangement of words by the poet, such as “The ship was as still as she could be ”and “The seabirds screamed as they wheeled round, and there was joyance in their mind”.
The memory of it is so wonderful, even though it has been 55 years!
My teacher’s expression in his voice and body language when he read the poem made it more interesting and caused me to love poems till today. I treasure those two books and refer to the poems whenever I feel like it.
He was a very knowledgeable teacher who was good at linking other poems and stories while explaining the meaning, and made sure we enjoyed poems while reading with expression.
Another poem I enjoyed was My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson. When narrating the poem, my teacher would give a brief history of the poet, a short biography which then enticed me to find out more about the poet and his other works. A beautiful section of the poem goes like this:
One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup,
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.
The above lines are very striking to me because my conscience would alert me if I am not early to rise from bed. Till now the good habit of waking up early is a daily routine.
My teacher links these lines with Benjamin Franklin’s quote, “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise”.
Through his encouragement, my teacher developed in me the habit of reading other books of interest, especially by authors like Sir Walter Scott, John Bunyan, Lord Tennyson, H.W. Longfellow, William Wordsworth,
Rudyard Kipling and P.B. Shelly. Their writings created in me a healthy reading habit which started in my school days and continues till today.
I enjoy sharing with a few former classmates about these wonderful poems. I very much wish to share them with youngsters too but they never show much interest; some do not even know about the great poets and authors and their works.
Even after my retirement, I enjoy reading the poem Leisure by W.H. Davies, which goes like this:
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare, ... A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
Just to forget everything – our worries, burdens, etc – and spend our golden time in a moment of tranquillity. To stare as long as we can at nature to calm ourselves and gain our strength. Our inner strength multiplies when we make attempts to live in tune with nature.
I am so grateful that my teacher instilled in me the interest to read poems and enjoy them to the fullest. Whenever I read these poems, I forget my age and become like an eager 12-year-old student again.