Carpe Diem. NB & LMc

Oh ye rosebud
so beautiful and moist
As your roots tangle amongst others
on to you mine body foist.

Thee cannot await your smell
now you are a beautiful bluebell
We must hurry before autumn arrives
we have to do it before the suns arrise.

As i take your hand
in holy matrimony
the doves all sing
in perfect harmony.

Oh ye bluebell
once beautiful and moist
i await you once more
for now i cant foist.

For now thee will party
and try to waste time
for when i reach heaven
you will be mine.

carpe diem poetry by tony and brad

A snake can take thy beauty but so can mine
so like the noughts let us intertwine
thy poison travels through us and will kill us before dawn
my vegetables are fully grown but will be dead before morn

the burrow of the snake is lost to him
but thee deny him access from the well where he drinks the water
and the ever rusting challis

Yellow bellied, tree huggin', pocket mulchin' hippy music

Hey folks from S4

If you are stuck for ideas with you "Environmental Poetry Presentations, some ideas are below

Ben Harper - "Excuse Me Mr"


Jack Johnson - "The Horizon has been Defeated"




Tom Waits - "Murder in the Red Barn"




Dave Matthews Band - "Don't Drink the Water"
(This rocks particularly well!)



REM - "The End of the World as we know it"
(not much about the environment, but a bit..)

Hello Sir, Remember Me?

Greetings, new S3 class, and welcome to Mr Sharpe the Teacher.

This week we'll be working a little more on the poetry we began on Friday. If you've forgotten or lost your question sheet, click the thumbnail to see and print the worksheet.

To see and hear Robbie performing this, click the link to youtube...

See you in class

"Tree Hugger" Poetry with S4

OK, so I still think of you all as S3 still, but then again I fear change.

Once we've polished off our own, self scripted, storyboarded and filmed "next scene" of The Truman Show, we're going to be looking at a range of poetry with an environmental theme. Not "save the wales environmental", more "turn off the TV and go do something in the woods" environmental. After this, we'll be writing our own, and (yipee!) writing an essay on one of the texts we study.

If you liked the Dave Matthews Band's Dreaming Tree and you want to watch it again, follow the links that should be somewhere on this post (not sure where right now)

Mr Sharpe

S5 - Brooklyn Cop

Hey folks,

I'm sure we are all revising hard, what with the exams less than a month off now. Tick tock, tick tock.

The question set today was "Choose a poem which you know well which has a memorable character. Write about the character, explaining why you found it memorable."

If I were looked at this question in an exam, I'd follow the following 8 paragraph plan:

Introduction - "Brooklyn Cop" is a poem, by Normal MacCaig. There's my triangle of text, genre and author. Then I'd have a couple of sentences summarising the poem - explaining that it is about a tough cop working a dirty beat in Brooklyn, USA. I'd explain that it is about how the cop confronts violence every day in his job, and that a part of him likes this. I'd make sure I explained that this was why I thought he was memorable.

My link paragraph would talk about the areas I was going to explore, and what I was going to show in each. For example: The character is memorable for his size and strength and his frightening appearance. MacCaig uses extended metaphor, careful words choice, and symbolism to suggest that not only is he a man who enjoys his violent job, but a well rounded three dimensional character, who also loves his wife and fears that one day he might not return.

Then I'd write PEE paragraphs in following areas:

• "Gorilla" - talk about extended metaphors, physical description of him, and why he needs to be so big, savage and beastial.


• All other the physical bits here - "heiroglyphs" etc - and talk about the suggestion that he likes and even seeks out the violence. This would lead me onto ...


• "Nightstick" - I'd talk about how he is memorable (see - referring back to the question) because his baton means he gets to be close to the people he is hitting, and how, unlike a gun, you can use it again and again. This also creates the impression that he likes violence. I'd also talk about symbolism of "night" in nightstick - is our eponymous cop the barrier that stops the "night" taking over the streets - maybe even referring back to "Hotel Room, 12th Floor" to show how clever I was


• I'd talk about his softer side, and how he is a three dimensional character, by showing how he says "see you, babe" to his wife.


• Finally, I'd discuss the deliberately ambiguous ending, and say it makes for a memorable character because it has so many interpretations - "And who would be who have to be
  his victims?" - because it is strange to think of policeman as having victims. Maybe he is so brutal, we feel sorry for the criminals who will become his victims.

In my final paragraph, which would be my conclusion, I'd sum up what I'd said and make sure I'd answered the question. I'd probably say something like "this was a great poem because I've never thought about policemen enjoying the violent side of their job before, and it helped me to understand more about what it must do to a person to be so close to agression every day."

Then I'd nad in my essay and take a 20 minute break before turning up for Mr Sharpe's after school exam practice session. But that's just me.

Brooklyn Cop
by Norman MacCaig

Built like a gorilla but less timid,
thick‑fleshed, steak‑coloured, with two
hieroglyphs in his face that mean
trouble, he walks the sidewalk and the
thin tissue over violence. This morning,
when he said, "See you, babe" to his wife,
he hoped it, he truly hoped it.
He is a gorilla
to whom "Hiya, honey" is no cliché.

Should the tissue tear, should he plunge through
into violence, what clubbings, what
gunshots between Phoebe's Whamburger
and Louie's Place.

Who would be him, gorilla with a nightstick,
whose home is a place
he might, this time, never get back to?

And who would be who have to be
his victims?

Righteous Babes and Personal Writing

Dear All,

I'm reading through the wonderful short stories S3 did today, and thinking about how many of them link back to the personal writing that happened at the end of last term. I came across Ranting Feminist / Powerful Lady Ani DiFranco a couple of years ago, and thought this might fit in with some of both creative and personal writing themes. S5 might enjoy this too, as a break from the violence and crime of MacCaig's poetry this week.

Lack of correct punctuation is intentional. You can do that once you are an artiste:

not a pretty girl

i am not a pretty girl

that is not what i do

i ain't no damsel in distress

and i don't need to be rescued

so put me down punk

maybe you'd prefer a maiden fair

isn't there a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere?

i am not an angry girl

but it seems like i've got everyone fooled

every time i say something they find hard to hear

they chalk it up to my anger

and never to their own fear

and imagine you're a girl

just trying to finally come clean

knowing full well they'd prefer you

were dirty and smiling

and i am sorry

i am not a maiden fair

and i am not a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere

and generally my generation

wouldn't be caught dead working for the man

and generally i agree with them

trouble is you gotta have yourself an alternate plan

and i have earned my disillusionment

i have been working all of my life

and i am a patriot

i have been fighting the good fight

and what if there are no damsels in distress

what if i knew that and i called your bluff?

don't you think every kitten figures out how to get down

whether or not you ever show up

i am not a pretty girl

i don't want to be a pretty girl

no i want to be more than a pretty girl

Find more ani here