I am gathering my thoughts about that York University research project into grammar teaching (reported on last week) and have things to say, in this connection, about Philip's Pullman's contention (last Saturday's Guardian) that we English teachers are wasting our time "teaching" grammar.
In the meantime, here's MacNeice's wonderful, play-full poem, 'Snow':
| The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was Spawning snow and pink roses against it Soundlessly collateral and incompatible: World is suddener than we fancy it. World is crazier and more of it than we think, Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion A tangerine and spit the pips and feel The drunkenness of things being various. And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes — On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands — There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses. |
