I am currently in the process of drafting my third collection of prose and poetry, entitled, 'The Island That's Hard To Find In English'. Given that I have been a part time Masters Student (in Education Theory and Spoken Word Education) these past two years, as well as working as a full time Poet In Residence at Cardinal Pole Secondary School in East London (same neighbourhood I grew up in), my creative output has been slow but I've been immersed in reading these past months and thought I'd recommend these books as they've informed some of the direction my new writing is going in.
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| Martin Espada |
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| Andrew Salkey |
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| Sherman Alexie |
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| Arundhati Roy |
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| Monique Roffery |
I have attended numerous teacher seminars recently about the reformed UK National Curriculum. Michael Gove is only allowing the teaching of literature published in a country that's been colonised by the British, (The British Isles). To counter this I've made a personal investment to stay in touch with all the reasons our Government would rather pretend certain things didn't exist.
This speech by the great Arundhati Roy (author of one of the greatest novels ever written IMHO, 'The God Of Small Things') should be on every National Curriculum in the world.
Fantastic speech by Arundhati Roy. It was delivered in 2002 which is why certain things she speaks about are now out of date. The Palestinians called a halt to suicide bombings in 2006.
ReplyDeleteThere are books in this list Ray, that I've never heard of, except for The God of Small Things, and how interesting you would put it on every school curriculum. We need our students to read more challenging book. Looking forward to checking your list out.