Having just finished an Eng Lit teaching career spanning 37 years - five countries and ten schools, I now have the delicious freedom of leisure and have spent some of that time in internet research.

I was asked to look at the interesting selection of poems in English in the CIE Anthology Songs of Ourselves. Since many of these poems are modern or contemporary and from poets who are less well-known American or

Antipodean or Asian poets I felt that my internet research might benefit other hardpressed busy teachers with less time to browse the web. I offer these freely available internet resources (image and text) and my own thoughts as a starting point for your  research on the poems and your dialogue with your students.

I have greatly enjoyed working on the CIE poems and become fascinated by their interconnectedness and also their connections with many of the prose works currently being studied in the CIE syllabus. I have also felt a personal link with many of the poems. I have followed in Hardy’s footsteps round Dorset. Marvelled at ‘Ozymandias’ statue in its arid Egyptian setting. Seen the Maori ovens and pumice streams of New Zealand, and am at this moment only hours away from the shiny new built Singapore skyline of Boey’s poem.

I received my own literary education at Durham University, (where Tony Harrison – was briefly my tutor) but it was my postgraduate studies at Exeter University that introduced me to the richness of Commomwealth and World literature.

Married to a historian and with historian and geographer sons, I feel that an understanding of  the life history and geographical sense of place of a poet is essential to a full understanding of where the poem is coming from. Though of course one must not fall into the trap of denying the creative voice of the poet and forcing an autobiographical ‘take’ on everything they write. Please feel free to add your own comments and research on these poems on the nexus website. I look forward to reading them!

You can find teacher's versions of the poems here in TeachersNexus in my Media Albums but you can also find student friendly versions on WikiwikiNexus