An Appreciation Of Rhythm

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An Appreciation Of Rhythm

This poem by Ian Crichton Smith is a poem about a boy who is sitting in a classroom feeling very frustrated. He begins to stare out beyond the classroom window and imagines where he wants to be.

        The poem is written in first person speech, as it begins with ‘I’. The mood of the poem at the start is frustration ‘I smack the ball right through the goals.’ This is a very aggressive piece of text and you can really feel the boy’s frustration and anger. The boy feels very misunderstood as he cant do his work and nobody can help him because they don’t understand, ‘But they dunno how the words get muddled in my head.’ The writer uses school boy slang which makes you think a bit more about what the boy is trying to say and the different way he conveys his feelings.

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        The boy begins to loose concentration on what he is doing and ‘looks through the window’ and sees a wall and begins to imagine what he really wants to do. The Poet then brings in a character, ‘Old Jerry’. Old Jerry is the boys English teacher and the boy doesn’t like Old Jerry because in real life Old Jerry knows that the boy isn’t good at English. However when the boy uses his imagination he can make Old Jerry to be who ever the boy wants him to be. The boy imagines him playing Old Jerry at the boys speciality, ...

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