As you probably know already I attended a Junior Secondary school, having failed 11plus. However, this school was very progressive and we were encouraged in so many ways. I came out of that school in 1966 with 5 O Grades and 1 O Level . Now this latter was of course not a Scottish exam. My English teacher, Miss Hogarth made a special arrangement for a few chosen pupils to do Oral English at this grade. So it was that we practiced public reading, debating, story telling and poetry reading. The exam did not take place in the school but in a large hall in the city center .
I recall the poem that I read, which I did not have to learn by heart, so to speak, but did have to have full knowledge of the piece so that I could look up and project our voices.
The title of the poem is 'The Tract', by William Carlos Williams. Considering the subject I now think it was a rather profound piece for a 16 year old ! My best friend recited 'The Song of the Shirt'.
Strange how these things remain so long in the memory.
On leaving that school I was was presented with a leather bound book ...'Albatross Book of Longer Poems' and both those poems are in it.
Obviously a thoughtful Dux prize from Miss Hogarth.
It was many , many years until I read poetry again at the meetings of The Lancashire Dead Good Poets Society. You see I had kept quiet about my own writings since I started in 1965. Quite how the box of scribblings and painfully typed sheets of foolscap came to still be with me are a mystery. Obviously I hadn't wanted to leave them at home with my parents , for they were like a diary, an intimate record of my teenage years. Nobody knew of them until I joined this group .
So now I open the afore mentioned book ( a long forgotten photo falls out ! That is another story ) and type a few lines from the poem I read in those far off years.
The Tract
I will teach you my townspeople
how to perform a funeral -
for you have it over a troop
of artists -
unless one should scour the world -
you have the ground sense necessary.
See! The hearse leads.
I begin with the design for a hearse.
For Christ's sake not black -
nor white either - and not polished!
Let it be weathered - like a farm wagon -
with gilt wheels (this could be
applied fresh at small expense)
or no wheels at all:
a rough dray to drag over the ground.
Well that will whet your appetite ! I hope you have enjoyed my ramblings, Kath
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