Hacker News Reader

Reading and reciting this poem and the works of Benjamin Zephaniah (particularly ‘dis poetry’) in gcse English convinced me that it wasn’t ‘lame’ and poetry can be inspiring

Same here! This poem and Anthem for Doomed Youth lodged deep in my memory. We all had to perform a poem from one of those GCSE collections and I chose Anthem for Doomed Youth. The silence in the classroom afterwards... We were lucky with English teachers though.

Instantly took me back 35 years.

I wonder if you can age a person based on them knowing this and whatever the Siegfried Sassoon poem that was covered in order to demonstrate onomatopoeia? I suppose it would depend how long it was (or indeed if it still is) part of the curriculum.

I did it too and found it to be the same. It was years until I realised we had actually been doing rather good stuff.

Same, although I actually remember enjoying this particular poem in class.