Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Bard Books 1967).
The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere
was a story known to me,
I spelt it so at Fighting Words
and they said, Okay S. T. -
the spelling’s not important
once you get from A to B!
We had no spell-check software,
it being 1793.
So anyway I wrote it down
like verses in a song -
a hundred and forty-two of them
(that’s really, really long).
I haven’t got in trouble yet
for spelling in strange ways.
You could get away with anything,
back in the old days.
Fighting Words, the Irish offshoot of the 826 Valencia-style tutoring centers conceived by Dave Eggars and his crew, was started by Sean Love, former Irish head of Amnesty, and Roddy Doyle, who is the only person named Roddy Doyle you have ever heard of. They and their staff, Sara and Orla (who were there when I was there, it might have changed), do a tremendous job. It’s really one of the finest things available to kids of all ages in Ireland. It focusses less on tutoring (other things cover that in Ireland) and more on teaching kids that they are entitled and able to write, and showing them that it’s fun.
Also, if you’re a teenager and every now and then the guy who wrote The Commitments drops in to see how you’re doing, I think that’s kind of motivational :). They did a series of endorsements from dead authors, during which the above was communicated to be spiritually by Coleridge. I got to volunteer there once and discovered that a) it is wonderful, and b) I did not yet have the knack for interacting with children. I’m a little better at that now, since children are everywhere. They work hard with schools and outreach stuff, and I just can’t say enough good things. Have kids and send them there.
