Ekphrastic Inquiry into the Neolithic Mind in the Islands of Scotland and Wales

Abstract

In a world of schooling that is increasingly driven by the measurable and quantifiable, poetry provides a rare experience of the ineffable. While there are indeed many other things teachers need to learn besides the reading and writing of poems, the practice of poetry teaches us to be nimble communicators, and allows us to either follow a strict structure or make our own rules. Poems demand that we choose words with just the right weight, tone, and rhythm to make the poem sing, or invent the right words if they don’t already exist. By breaking us free from the structures of formal prose, writing poetry can help us to find our voice and express the universal aspects of our personal experiences. When we are conscious of crafting imagery with words, the experience of making a poem can feel closer to painting than to writing prose.