Christmas_Edition_2019

Karl Nova visits JFS
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When Ms Mellor told us that we had the chance to spend the day to do poetry with the 2018 CLiPPA
winner (that’s the Centre for Literacy in Primary Poetry Award) who had won it for his debut collection
called Rhythm and Poetry, we thought that this was an opportunity we couldn’t miss. Little did we know
that Karl Nova wasn’t just a winner of an award but also an entertaining, humble man!
The day started off with Karl telling us a bit about himself so that we could understand his background. His
father is a lecturer who has studied at some very prestigious universities in Britain and the United States
– so you can imagine his reaction when Karl told him that he was going to be a poet. He also gave us little
anecdotes that gave the background to some of his poems which helped us to appreciate why he had
written them and the meaning behind them. RAP means Rhythm and Poetry. So simple yet so compelling.
The theme for National Poetry Day on 3rd October was truth. Karl told us we would be writing our own
slam/rap poetry based on this theme. We split into pairs and chose a topic we would focus on. We
decided to focus on ‘cheating’. After completing the poem from one point of view, Karl suggested that we
wrote the reply from the other person’s viewpoint. The effect was quite astounding (Ms Mellor seemed
blown away by our creativity)!
Not only did we perform it in front of the other students involved in the session, we then showcased our
work to Year 7.
We really enjoyed our day with Karl Nova as it allowed us to see poetry in a new light. Suddenly poetry is
interesting and no longer something we will dread studying.
Thank you Karl (and Ms Mellor).
Aiden S and William R (Year 10)
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