The Poetry Society Celebrating our centenary

Poetry Shop > Education Materials > Posters >

Beginners' Riddles

Introducing word-play from around the world, introducing pupils and teachers to the quirky world of verse, with teaching notes introduced by poet George Szirtes.

(Educational Level: ks 1/2, ages 5-11)

EXCERPT FROM GEORGE SZIRTES' INTRODUCTION

"We are constantly having to reinvent language to convey the startling, unique, once and once only strangeness of being alive. This reinvention - close to common speech yet not entirely of it - is the business of poetry, the most language intensive of the verbal arts... A good riddle should therefore have many of the virtues of a good poem. It should be economical, apposite, surprising, rhythmically satisfying, capable of unfolding or engaging the emotions."