Episode 15: An Apple for the Teacher

Teachers, librarians, and our favourite poems 🍎📚

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This newsletter is released as a companion to each podcast episode, and we use it to share the visual elements of our discussion — from mood boards to design sketches, from photos to secret giveaways just for subscribers.

In episode fifteen, we honoured National Teachers’ Month by talking about the teachers who made us into the writers we are today. Below, some behind the scenes pictures, and as we promised in the episode, our favourite poems!

Here’s Amie just last month, catching up with her grade six teacher Di Rundus — this is the life-changing woman who found a way to take her to a storytelling camp when she was eleven years old.

And here’s Amie, several years before, with her co-author Meg Spooner, and Joan Amiet, the primary school librarian who made reading magic for her.

We have pictures for Kate, as well! She doesn’t have shots with her teachers, but we have shots of her when she was a teacher.

First up, here she is on the day she was nominated to be the school captain for the gold team on spirit day. She really got into the… spirit.

Then we’ve got a lovely message one of her students left on her whiteboard…

And finally, here's one of Kate and her 9th graders, whom she called her squirrels because of how...well...squirrelly they could be. When they were being loud she'd tell them to wrap up their tails, which they knew meant "please chill out and listen."

And now finally, a little word nerdery — our favourite poems. First is Cargoes by John Masefield, Amie’s favourite. She says:

I love this poem for the rhythm of the language. Take a minute — I know you’re reading quickly! — and slow down to read it to yourself, really luxuriating in the language. Hear how each of the three verses has a different feeling — first languid and almost liquid, then more upright, like the ship itself, then the last quick and choppy and businesslike. The way Masefield matches the experience of the words to their meaning is beautiful.

'Cargoes'

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,

Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,

With a cargo of ivory,

And apes and peacocks,

Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,

Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,

With a cargo of diamonds,

Emeralds, amethysts,

Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,

Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,

With a cargo of Tyne coal,

Road-rails, pig-lead,

Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

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Next we have Wild Geese, Kate’s favourite. Of this poem, she says:

I love Wild Geese because I watched a video of Helena Bonham Carter performing it while Australia was in the depths of COVID and it moved me in a way I hadn't been moved in a long time. I love the way it seems to gently reach out to the reader and remind you to accept yourself, to love the world and to keep loving it, even when it hurts you. To keep dreaming, even when it feels hard. It's like a lyrical, supportive hug when you need it.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

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Sigh. Isn’t poetry magic?

That’s it for this episode — we’ll see you next episode — and in the meantime, we’d love to hear from you in the comments, about your favourite teacher or your favourite poem. Was there someone who changed your life when you were at school? Please tell us about them here!