📖 Book Review ~ School Days : Twenty Poems from the Classroom from Candlestick Press

Candlestick Press
September 2024

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this pamphlet

SELECTED AND INTRODUCED BY JEANETTE BURTON AND JONATHAN EDWARDS

You never forget your school days… Is this because we were young, our minds marvellously open to the new and undiscovered? Or is it the repeating patterns of the school day and year?

Whatever the reasons, there’ll always be moments we remember: the science experiment that went wrong, a teacher saying we’re a star or the sticky-palmed hours in the hall doing exams. And there’s the universal experience of daydreaming out of the classroom window:

“The teacher repeats the question.

Outside the window, on an overhanging branch,

a robin is ruffling its feathers…”

from ‘The Hand’ by Mary Ruefle

These lively and enriching poems capture the light and shade of our days at school, and celebrate the teachers who help shepherd us through childhood and out into the world.

Poems by Kathryn Bevis, Carole Bromley, Jeanette Burton, Charles Causley, Denise Duhamel, Jonathan Edwards, Carla Sofia Ferreira, Oliver Goldsmith, Lorna Goodison, Andrew Jamison, Stephen Knight, Keith Leonard, Hannah Lowe, Thomas Lux, Brad Aaron Modlin, Kim Moore, Christopher Reid, Mary Ruefle, Catherine Smith and Jennifer Wong.

Cover illustration by Cat Moore.

📖 My Review...

September, with its season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, reminds me of returning to school after the long summer holidays and of collecting conkers from the huge chestnut tree near school. This lovely collection of twenty poems - what a treat to have double the usual amount - brings school days to life in a wonderfully evocative collection of poems by twenty talented writers. From the imaginative cover, which reminded me of my classroom, with its regimented rows of desks which attempted to place us into some semblance of order. Suitably divided into Ten Poems about School and Ten Poems about Teachers, here's a little taster of what delights are on offer.

This reminds me of the absolute fear of turning over that exam paper and hoping what you had revised was on there:

How it all started by Catherine Smith

" Do you know this dream? An exam room

full of neat, serious girls, your lucky gonk

by your fountain pen, the plop of tennis balls

through an open window.  You're here for

'O' Level history on The Causes

of the First World War but you've no idea -"

And of playing school teachers with my friend Susan, scribbling on bits of paper and placing ticks on homemade registers:

School Gates by Carole Bromley

“ is Matilda and Martha's favourite game.

They can play for hours. It goes like this

I have to be the teacher by the French window,

while they take it in turns to be the mother 

dropping her daughter off and picking her up."

Twenty Poems about School is the perfect antidote to returning to school after a holiday. All of the twenty poems in the collection evoke memories of school days, both past and present. It would make  a great gift ‘instead of a card’ for both teachers and pupils and also for anyone who has fond memories of their school days. 

About the Publisher

Candlestick Press is a small, independent press publishing sumptuously produced poetry pamphlets that serve as a wonderful alternative to a greetings card, with matching envelopes and bookmarks left blank for your message. Their subjects include Mountains, Clouds, Walking, Birds, Wine and Happiness. Candlestick Press pamphlets are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, galleries and garden centres nationwide and available to order online.

Twitter/X @poetrycandle

Website