“Poetry matters little to the modern world.” It is almost seventy-five years since F.R. Leavis made his famous observation, an observation that has been frequently quoted and frequently misunderstood.

The assumption has often been made that poetry has little to offer the modern world; it has little relevance. Not so. Not in the time of Leavis or our own. His view was that the modern world does not favour the growth of poets. And much as the world has moved on in the past seventy-five years, often at break-neck speed, the reading and writing of poetry remain sidelined, a meandering bye-way alongside the multi-lane motorway furore of technological advancement.

And why should it be any different? What role can poetry play when communication has shrunk the world and our entertainment is beamed at us from space? And why should we expect schools to devote time to a seemingly arcane ritual when the future facing our children is so complex and so various?

The simple answer is that poetry remains fundamental to our existence. Our first sensory experience is our mother’s heartbeat; the rhythmical pattern similar to that which underpins so much verse. Our response to times of stress or trauma is to look for a poetic expression whether from within ourselves or from an acknowledged master. Who can forget John Hannah’s rendition of Auden’s “Funeral Blues” in the film “Four Weddings and a Funeral”? Advertisers latched on to the memorable qualities of poetry a long time ago. Hi-jacked for commercial purposes perhaps, but assonance and rhyme convinced us of the merits of a Mars a day…

And because we look to schools to develop as well as train, then children should have the opportunity to read a wide range of poetry and engage in the process of putting the right words in the right order, employing parody and pastiche as they search for their own poetic voice. The act of capturing memorable speech or producing language charged with rhythm and meaning is not a mere indulgence, rather both activities are entitlements allowing pupils or students to reflect upon the nature of experience; to gain a handle on the complexities of the world around them.

 Too often English teaching (not that the writing of poetry should be the sole preserve of the English classroom) is saddled with the dead hand of literacy. Yes, we want pupils in schools to be functionally literate as the basic skills of reading and writing are vitally important but these skills extend well beyond a utilitarian purpose. Reading and writing, inter-related, are crafts that repay nurturing and development. Skilled readers and writers are rewarded in much the same way as skilled artists or musicians and poetry, putting the right words in the right order, stands right at the centre of the reading/writing craft allowing for linguistic hypothesis and experimentation.

 Whatever the economic and employment demands of the twenty-first century, we need our future adults to be skilled manipulators of language, we need them to have a thorough insight to the human condition. All of that is available through reading and writing poetry.