Venture into Poetry
Tuesday 27 May 2008
Aberdeen Central Library [Venue 7]
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L to R: Morgan Prihoda, Shannon McGuinness, Erin Morrison, Rachel Hobkirk, Jemma
Davidson, Taylor Hill, Joseph Orren
Photo by Roger Barnett
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Reading and writing poetry is often perceived as an unfashionable pastime that many
youngsters would never own up to doing.
But one group of North-East children is determined to bring it back into the limelight.
First-year pupils from Banchory Academy have published their own book of poems and
last night gave a performance of their work in Aberdeen as part of the community-led
Wordfringe festival.
English teacher Pauline de Koning is in charge of the project at Banchory. She said
all the credit for its success should go to the children.
She said the 11 and 12-year-olds started the poetry project at the end of last year
and, little by little, changed their attitude towards poetry and started to gain
confidence in writing and reciting works.
They then gathered the best of their poems, approached a publisher and managed to
get their efforts collated in a book, which they sold to raise money for Cancer
Research UK.
The book, called Venture Into Poetry, was published under the name of Banchory
Young Writers.
Mrs de Koning said: ‘It's their project. I started it all and was there in
the background but they should get the credit. They've done a tremendous job and
there's some very good poetry in the book.’
Last night seven pupils performed poems at Aberdeen Central Library.
‘I'm delighted it worked out so well,’ said Mrs de Koning.
Emma Christie
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