Pocket poetry book aims to inspire new teachers

Literature: Library gives gift of verse to help new starters in the profession

Some of the world’s most famous poets – including WH Auden, Robert Frost and Liz Lochhead – honed their craft while working in the classroom.

And now, Scotland’s latest generation of teachers have been offered the chance to derive inspiration from a new pocket-sized book of verse, To Learn the Future, as a gift from the education profession.

The initiative has been designed to let newlyqualified staff in 2018 and 2019 know they are not alone in whatever challenges they meet, with Scotland’s schools open again after the summer break.

The Scottish Poetry Library publication, edited by Lilias Fraser, Jane Cooper and Kate Hendry, has been created with the backing of such organisations as the General Teaching Council of Scotland and the EIS.

Mrs Cooper said: “I think a lot of the teachers who read this book

“Teachers who read this book will think ‘it’s OK to feel like this’”

will think: ‘Yes, it’s OK to feel like this’.

“The book will be most successful when it gives a teacher a moment of recognition.”

The poets featured include such well-known figures as Emily Dickinson, Roger McGough, Billy Collins, Sophie Hannah and Carol Ann Duffy.

Most of the works are in English, but there is also a Gaelic verse by Aonghas Macneacail, who was born at Uig in the Isle of Skye.

It contains a foreword from Scotland’s Makar, Jackie Kay, who spoke about the value of such projects in bringing people closer together.

She said: “All our lives, we remember our teachers. A good teacher knows it is not lessons they teach but students.

“This gem of a book is for everyone, and I hope it will be enjoyed as much by the PE and physics teachers as by those who deliver A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“Whether you savour them in your lunch hour or after hours, these poems will hold open the door and make you welcome.”

To Learn the Future is a follow-up to the Scottish Poetry Library’s anthology for junior doctors, Tools of the Trade: Poems for Doctors.

In 2014, the SPL published the anthology, highlighting how difficult the early months in a junior doctor’s career can be.

It was a great success, attracting interest both within the UK and across North America.

POET: Scotland’s Makar, Jackie Kay, has written a foreword for the poetry book praising teachers and inviting those who teach all subjects, not just English, to enjoy it