The Poetry Channel

Worth checking out by teachers, as well as general readers: The Poetry Channel is a new "freely accessible web-based video channel and portal for poetry" from the excellent English and Media Centre. You can search by poet, title and topic (such as Love, Grief, Fathers...). And there's a Poem for Today. Have a look here at Greg Wise reading Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress' (most of the site features contemporary poets). We've only just started to look at it, but it's certainly a good way to start a lesson.

The aims are to

• exploit the potential of the web to create a rich multi-sensory experience of poetry which includes music, film, and animation, as well as readings by actors and authors.
• bring together diverse and eclectic poetry worlds – from the unpublished world of slams, live events and song writing, to the published, literary and classic traditions of poetry.
• appeal to a really wide audience, from committed poetry readers to those who have felt excluded or haven’t thought poetry is for them.