外研版英语选修八module6原文

【MODULE 6】The Tang Poems

【READING AND VOCABULARY】

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【READING AND WRITING】

The Power of Poetry

Reading and writing poetry is a very personal experience. Poets use language as a way of expressing their feelings, whether positive ones of love, happiness and hope, or negative feelings like anger and fear. Poems can describe the beauty of nature, a person, a dream or a memorable event. Most people have tried writing poetry at some time, for example at school. For children, it is a good way to explore language and have fun with words as well as to express themselves.

But teachers and psychologists have found another use for poetry as a form of therapy to help people with problems. There are benefits for people of all different backgrounds and aged. Writing poetry can help people deal with changes in their lives, death or feelings of sadness, drug or alcohol problems or serious illness. By writing down your feelings, you can learn to understand yourself better and give yourself a voice if you feel you are being ignored. A poem might be a way of telling someone something when you do not feel able to talk about it face to face. And just because people are ill or having difficulties in their lives, it doesn`t mean they have lost their sense of humour. Poems written as therapy can be funny too, as laughter is also considered to be very good medicine.

Students at a special school in Dudley, in England, read and write poems every day. Some of the poems they write are very good, but their reason for writing is not just to be creative. All of them have problems. Some of them have long-term medical conditions, such as cancer, while others have personality disorders or psychological problems. By writing poems students are growing in self-confidence. The poem provide a channel through which they can communicate with the world, and express their feelings. They also help them to recognize a positive attitude to life.

But the poems are helping other people, too. The school has collected some of the students` poems and published them in a book which is being sold to raise funds for a local hospital. The book has proved very popular, giving students a sense of motivation and achievement.

【READING PRACTICE】

Poems on the Underground

Anyone who is addicted to reading bus tickets or cereal packets will understand the appeal of Poems on the Underground. Some years ago, a few London, who used the Tube and loved poetry, decided that it would be pleasant to read a few lines by Tube, instead of just glancing upwards at the tiresome advertisements. The Underground had a surplus of advertising space on the trains. They suggested filling the blank spaces with poems, for the entertainment of the travelling public.

London Underground approved of the idea, and once sponsors had been found to pay the expenses for half the spaces, they agreed to pay for the other half. So, in January 1986,Poems on the Underground was officially launched at Aldwych station, in the centre of London. Many of those who left the morning daylight and the damp streets above, and descended through the ticket barriers to the shabby old Underground platform saw the

usual signs——TICKETS AND TRAINS, THIS WAY DOEN, CAUTION! DON`T CLIMB ONTO THE LINES, STAND CLEAR, DOORS CLOSING

——assume a special literary significance. There was coffee, doughnuts, and wine too, served on the benches where they would usually sit and wait. When the train with a preview of the first poems arrived, everyone got on and within minutes of its departure, the carriages were merry with a chorus of voices reading verse by Shelley, Burns and of course, by themselves.

The poems took on a new life when they were removed from books and placed alongside the adverts. Commuters enjoyed the idea of reading Keats` Much have I travel`d` in the realms of gold on a crowded Central Line train, or trying to learn by heart a sonnet between Hammersmith and Piccadilly. The choice of poems wasn`t arbitrary but specially chosen. It catered for all tastes and included living and dead poems from the homeland and from all