What do you wish you'd learned at school about poetry?

[billy]

i totally agree but what 15 year old wouldn't love to write a poem using expletives. the idea is to get them hooked then teach them the refinements. the truth is; we don't need poetry, and that's the problem. like anything, if we don't need It we don't wont it, kids needs playstations etc (at least that's what they think) and poetry has to contend with such needs. poetry has to be pitted against such diversions. tell a kid it's okay to use what language they like in poetry and more than less will give it a go. often we learn life experiences by seeing first hand how nasty they can be. after that we see the true beauty of it, fire, when do you tell your kids it burns and hurts and not to touch it, when do we bring fire into the world of kids and how do we do it. poetry is like fire. it often burns us before we get to know how good it is. water is the same. i showed my kids how fun water can be and they loved it, their mum on the other hand was brought up to hate it. my kids used and abused it before coming to respect it. and see it in all it's refinements.
we need poetry to be fun, to be beautiful to be our window, we don't need anything to teach us that we're prone to folly, history does a good enough job of that deed. we need poetry to be an open door, or a cloud or ray's cat. we need poetry to be an adventure, an experience, a good wank. we need it to be whatever we we need it to be. we need it to be student and the teacher, sex, love and a cigarette after being dumped. if you can show the kids (not tell them) these things, you'll have a few poets from each class. so in summation i say
shock em then rock em.