This week, I’m
completing an online course, “William
Wordsworth: Poetry, People, and Place.” Offered by Lancaster University in partnership with
the Wordsworth Trust, the
course has submersed me in Wordsworth’s poetry for the past three weeks. I’ve
analyzed several of his poems; listened to academic experts; learned about
manuscripts and how it was only in the Romantic period that writers and poets
began to hold on to the various drafts; written short essays for critique by
other participants; assembled and reassembled poems; and studied how the
geography of the Lake District influenced Wordsworth.
If I extrapolate
from the number of comments, I would guess that up to a thousand of us are taking
this course, and from all over the world. Wordsworth in particular and British
poetry in general has a sizeable fan base. And it’s no surprise that poetry is
vitally important in Britain.
Next week –
Thursday, Oct. 6 to be precise – Britain celebrates National Poetry Day UK, and
Tweetspeak Poetry is joining with the Forward Arts Foundation to
participate. The foundation is an organization that celebrates excellence in
poetry and works to widen poetry’s audience, and National Poetry Day is one of
its official initiatives. It also sponsors the annual Forward Poetry Prizes.
The theme of this year’s poetry day celebration is “Messages.”
Poetry is indeed
serious business in Britain. London Transport even posts
poems on the Underground, or Tube.
To continue
reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak
Poetry.
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