The Egregious Lady

At school, one of the English teachers sets a ‘Word of the Week’ challenge. He provides a complex word that students have to define and use in an original sentence to show understanding. If they do this, they get an house point.
At the end of this year, he set a challenge to use all of the words in a piece of writing, so I chose a poem. It’s a little non-sensical, but let me know what you think!
(And can you spot the likely given words? (Hint: There are twenty six!))

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The Sea in ‘Hide and Seek’ by Vernon Scannell

I was covering this poem with my Y11 class this week when I finally came to some kind of understanding of the recurring sea imagery. I find it sometimes takes someone else talking about a text to give me focussed thinking space in order to consider these things; and, as the group were feeding back their analysis of the poem, I had one of those wonderful moments when I saw something that had previously eluded me.

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Blessed

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The first days of Spring break
Winter’s grip on the world.
The snows retreat,
the frosts diminish,
and the frozen earth
gives birth to new life.
Snowdrops pale the greening grass,
early petals splash a fractured rainbow,
and daffodils nod like kings,
their crowns asserting life’s dominion.
Nature unites in a glorious wave
goodbye to what has passed;
and every new year savours like success,
reminding all that lives that life is blessed.