1. The theme of this year’s National Poetry Day is change.
National Poetry Day is an annual celebration that inspires people throughout the UK to enjoy, discover and share poems.
The theme of this year’s National Poetry Day is change.
Schools and community groups across the UK will be sharing poetry and celebrating the power of poetry.

2. What does ‘change’ mean to you?
Take a moment to think about the types of changes that we may observe or experience. Do you think of change as a negative or positive experience or can it be a mixture of the two? Is change always easy? Why not?
Chameleon: Photo by KP Bodenstein on Unsplash
Pug: Photo by JC Gellidon on Unsplash
Baby: Photo by Jake Peterson on Unsplash
Wedding: Photo by Levi Alvarez on Unsplash
Signs: Photo by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash

3. Front Door by Imtiaz Dharker
Look at the title. What type of changes may occur when you step outside your front door? Are these changes external or internal to you?
Photo by Akira Hojo on Unsplash

4. walking out of the front door every morning means crossing over
Wherever I have lived,
walking out of the front door
every morning
means crossing over
to a foreign country.
Read the poem throughout and then return to read each stanza separately.
Why may walking out the front door mean crossing to a foreign country for the poet? What changes?

5. One language inside the house, another out. The food and clothes
and customs change.
The fingers on my hand turn
into forks.
Discuss sensitively the type of changes that may occur- from clothes with cultural/religious significance to the types of food that are eaten. Why do her fingers turn into forks?

6. when my tongue switches from one grammar to another,
I call it adaptation
when my tongue switches
from one grammar to another,
but the truth is I’m addicted now,
high on the rush
of daily displacement,
speeding into a different time zone,
heading into altered weather,
landing as another person.
Look at the travel imagery- different time zone, altered weather, landing- why might she use these images?
Why might she enjoy the change?

7. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you’re on the same trip too.
How else may we be on the same journey? What changes occur for you- from in the house to out? Do you talk to your friends in the same language as you do your family? How might dialect/vernacular change? Does this happen automatically or do you have to think about it? Do you ever make mistakes? Do you like this change or is it difficult? What else is different?

8. In The Land of Giants by George Szirtes
Look at the title- In The Land of Giants. What might this refer to? What might ‘The Land of Giants’ be?
Relate to Giant Spectacular starting today. What would it be like to be in the land of giants?
by George Szirtes

9. Once everything was big and you were small, but year after year your shadow  crept up the wall  and you grew tall.
“Once everything was big and you were small”- what is the land of giants? What is it like to be a small child surrounded by adults?

10. Quite frightening really to think of that small shadow disappearing, to hear that small voice passing out of hearing
That’s the trouble with growing: you’d like to know where you are going, but there’s no knowing.
What would you say is the underlying mood of the piece? What does the poem say about growing up and changing as you age?
What similarities/differences are there in the way that these two poems show change.
Front Door is about a constant everyday change from the way a person acts at home to outside the front door. In The Land of Giants shows a change that comes gradually and with age and is difficult to predict. Imtiaz Dharker shows change to be welcome and exciting whilst George Szirtes shows that there can be something unsettling about the not-knowing that comes with change.
Often poets deal with the emotions created by events such as change through writing or through connecting to other people’s writing.

11. How can you get involved with National Poetry Day?
Read some poetry about change or watch videos of poets on the National Poetry Day website
Collect poetry to create your own anthology of poetry on a theme
Choose a favourite poem and illustrate it
Rehearse and perform a piece of poetry
Write your own poem about change

12. #NationalPoetryDay
#liverpoolpoetry
@PoetryDayUK
@ReadingatLLP