English Twitterbag 1

A new series fishing a few interesting English links out of our recent Twitter stream, expanding on them and throwing in a few comments...

All teachers and students of poetry should be interested in the Emily Dickinson Archive, which "will make high-resolution images of manuscripts of Dickinson’s poetry and letters available in open access, along with transcriptions and annotations from historical and scholarly editions." You can sign up to get an email alert when the Archive opens this autumn.

The Great Language Game [audio] is fun: the first few languages are easy enough, but then things get harder, especially when the choices multiply.

For any teacher of English in Ireland, the main issue at the moment is the impending change to the Junior Cycle. Evelyn O'Connor of LeavingCert.net has a meaty and characteristically passionate response here. As she suggests, get a cup of coffee ready for the long but worthwhile read.

The biggest and saddest recent event in literature was Seamus Heaney's premature passing from us: our own response is here, followed by a Storify of reactions from around the world. 

One of the most inventive and interesting users of Twitter is the novelist Teju Cole. He recently tweeted a series of modern 'received ideas' ("ARTISAN. A carpenter, in Brooklyn.") and wrote about them in the New Yorker here. Enjoy.

Finally, there are some excellent poetry posters for self-printing from the Scottish Poetry Library here - lots for classroom display.