Author(s): Vaughan Rapatahana

Primary Years 1 to 8 | Poetry

Following on from the highly popular Books 1 and 2 in this series, Poetry in Multicultural Oceania – Book 3 is a teaching resource that augments students' understanding and appreciation of poetry, as well as providing opportunities for the creative writing of poetry.

Although this series is designed primarily for Years 6–9, it is of value far beyond – including for learners with a first language other than English, and adults who want to develop their own appreciation of poetry. Because this resource is designed to make poetry accessible for everyone, regardless of their ability, it assumes users have little prior knowledge of poetry.

However, some prior teaching of certain poetic terms and techniques, introduced gradually through this book, would be an advantage. Helpful hints are also sprinkled liberally throughout the resource. Given its overlying theme of multiculturalism, this book is also valuable as a social studies teaching resource. Its activities are based on poems by leading Australian and New Zealand poets, primarily from minority ethnic groups, who reflect the increasingly diverse nature of the societies of Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.

As students develop their understanding and appreciation of the poems, they will also have ample opportunities to discuss and consider multicultural voices in their own communities. It is also important to note that modern poetry is not restricted by traditional styling and set formats. For example, it need not have rhyme, regular rhythm and line lengths, verses, a certain overall number of lines, punctuation and so on. Indeed, modern poetry is open to an almost unbounded array of styling, word and language use, experimentation and content – although, of course, traditional verse forms can still be used, if a poet chooses to. Moreover, a modern multicultural poem does not necessarily have to be written entirely in any one language. So what does characterise a modern poem? Definitely it will contain some sort of rhythm and some obvious line breaks. Generally it will have some repetition of sounds, if not of words and phrases. And it will contain imagery, of course.