My Study Diary - by Mike aged 43

"Almost a month since I wrote my first entry for the study diary.

I feel that I am making good progress so far, I have grabbed bits of time to study here and there and have completed up to Activity 29 in the study book. I do feel that I now have a decent grasp of the basics of poetry, although some practise and repetition certainly won’t harm.

I have really enjoyed the poetry section, and learning about the forms, structure and context of poetry has helped both my understanding and enjoyment of the module so far. I feel confident that I have understood most aspects of the poetry module and that I have made good progress.

I have read some other poetry, some by Sylvia Plath, and I am half way through the set poetry book for AA100, so I am gradually widening my knowledge of poetry. I have also read some books which are related to study in general or arts and history, The Study Skills Handbook - Stella Cottrell, Wilfred Owen : War Poems and Others - Ed. Dominic Hibberb, Learning To Look At Modern Art – Mary Acton and taken notes.

Areas that I would still like to develop – I still struggle a bit with iambic pentameter, and I have found from the ‘comments’ section that there are often layers of meaning within poems that I have not always understood, or in at least one case, agreed with. This last point refers to ‘The Fat Black Woman Goes Shopping’ which I found hard to see as a protest poem when placed alongside some of the other poets, perhaps in relation to the larger body of Nichols’ work it would make more sense."