3 October 2019
On Tuesday, in preparation for National Poetry Day, ten students had the honour to undergo a poetry masterclass with poet David Briggs.
We started things off with some readings from Briggs’ recently published collection entitled Cracked Skull Cinema wherein we looked at poems on subject matters ranging from teacups to the city of Ljubljana. This was met with great praise by the boys, and was followed by a Q&A session, considering these poems, as well as approaches to writing poetry.
The question as to what was more important to a poem; its message or its language, was an especially stimulating point of discussion. We ended the session with some writing prompts, allowing students to quickly write and recite some poetry of their own, capitalising on the advice they had just learnt. The session was a great opportunity to explore the poetic form, and on behalf of the students I would like to thank Mr Briggs for his poetic insight.
Written by Rory Bishop, Lower Sixth
