Poetry and Motion

Yesterday I heard that Andrew Motion, the current poet laureate in the UK, will come to the end of his term at the end of the week. Wikipedia describes such a post in the following way:

A Poet Laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for State occasions and other government events. The plural form is poets laureate.In United Kingdom the term has for centuries been the title of the official poet of the monarch, since the time of Charles II. Poets laureate are appointed by many countries. In Britain there is also a Children's laureate and in the United States there is a Student Poet Laureate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poet_Laureate

This lead me to thinking about poetry and Conductive Education, and a poem I had read written by a mother whose child had benefited greatly from Conductive Education. A search on the internet for this brought up not only that, but an amazing number of references to Conductive Education and poetry. Here I will mention just the two.

REAW, an American parent has written An Ode to Conductive Education, and this is the first verse:

How have you changed me...let me count the ways.
Are you kidding? I can’t count that high yet, nor is there enough praise…
That could even begin to accurately describe,
How I found Conductive Education…and then “came ALIVE.”
A center opened near me, making history in my state,
It changed my life, my world, my fate.

Further verses can be found on her blog, A life changing experience, at http://www.disaboom.com/Blogs/reaswaiss/archive/2008/05/02/a-heart-felt-poem-about-a-life-changing-experience.aspx

The second poem was written by an adult who had received Conductive Education at the ING Centre in Australia, and wrote the verses about his experiences in the Parkinson's group run there. Here is a brief extract:.

As our horizons now enlarge
Of our illness we’re in charge
So to this method we’re inducted
As we are so well conducted
And further points we hope to earn
As throughout our lives we learn.

The complete poem by Don Wilcox, was published in the ING Centre for Conductive Education Newsletter, volume 5, no.1, May 2004, and can be found at http://www.tscnsw.org.au/services/conded/info/newsletter/2004/may.pdf

Yesterday Andrew Motion described his experiences over the past ten years, and emphasised what a good opportunity it had been to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry. Neither of these people could be a poet laureate, but their poems certainly help to explain, appreciate and acknowledge the benefits of Conductive Education and hopefully raise awareness levels through desciption of their own experiences.