THIS IS THE PLACE! (Tribute to victims of Manchester's attack)

In the aftermath of Tuesday's terrorist attack at the Manchester Arena at the end of Ariana Grande's concert, people have gathered in the city to pay tribute to its victims. In one of the tributes in the city's Albert Square, local poet Tony Walsh read out a poem of support to his city and its inhabitants. Here you can watch the video of the moment and read/listen to the complete poem which is transcribed below. "THIS IS THE PLACE".
It's our tribute to the victims and people of Manchester and of any other attack throughout the world. Let's hope it could be the last time.

Video:

This is the place

In the north-west of England. It’s ace, it’s the best

And the songs that we sing from the stands, from our bands

Set the whole planet shaking.

Our inventions are legends. There’s nowt we can’t make, and so we make brilliant music

We make brilliant bands

We make goals that make souls leap from seats in the stands

And we make things from steel

And we make things from cotton

And we make people laugh, take the mick sommat rotten

And we make you at home

And we make you feel welcome and we make summat happen

And we can’t seem to help it

And if you’re looking from history, then yeah we’ve a wealth

But the Manchester way is to make it yourself.

And make us a record, a new number one

And make us a brew while you’re up, love, go on

And make us feel proud that you’re winning the league

And make us sing louder and make us believe that this is the place that has helped shape the world

And this is the place where a Manchester girl named Emmeline Pankhurst from the streets of Moss Side led a suffragette city with sisterhood pride

And this is the place with appliance of science, we’re on it, atomic, we struck with defiance, and in the face of a challenge, we always stand tall, Mancunians, in union, delievered it all

Such as housing and libraries and health, education and unions and co-ops and first railway stations

So we’re sorry, bear with us, we invented commuters. But we hope you forgive us, we invented computers.

And this is the place Henry Royce strolled with Rolls, and we’ve rocked and we’ve rolled with our own northern soul

And so this is the place to do business then dance, where go-getters and goal-setters know they’ve a chance

And this is the place where we first played as kids. And me mum, lived and died here, she loved it, she did.

And this is the place where our folks came to work, where they struggled in puddles, they hurt in the dirt and they built us a city, they built us these towns and they coughed on the cobbles to the deafening sound to the steaming machines and the screaming of slaves, they were scheming for greatness, they dreamed to their graves.

And they left us a spirit. They left us a vibe. The Mancunian way to survive and to thrive and to work and to build, to connect, and create and greater ― Manchester’s greatness is keeping it great.

And so this is the place now with kids of our own. Some are born here, some drawn here, but all call it home.

And they’ve covered the cobbles, but they’ll never defeat, all the dreamers and schemers who still teem through these streets

Because this is a place that has been through some hard times: oppressions, recessions, depressions, and dark times.

But we keep fighting back with greater Manchester spirit. Northern grit, northern wit, and greater Manchester’s lyrics

And these hard times again, in these streets of our city, but we won’t take defeat and we don’t want your pity.

Because this is a place where we stand strong together, with a smile on our face, greater Manchester forever

And we’ve got this place where a team with a dream can get funding and something to help with a scheme.

Because this is a place that understands your grand plans. We don’t do “no can do” we just stress “yes we can”

Forever Manchester’s a charity for people round here, you can fundraise, donate, you can be a volunteer. You can live local, give local, we can honestly say, we do charity different, that Mancunian way

And we fund local kids, and we fund local teams. We support local dreamers to work for their dreams. We support local groups and the great work they do. So can you help us. help local people like you?

Because this is the place in our hearts, in our homes, because this is the place that’s a part of our bones

Because greater Manchester gives us such strength from the fact that this is the place, we should give something back

Always remember, never forget, forever Manchester

IF YOU CAN SAY EVERY WORD IN THIS POEM, YOU SPEAK BETTER ENGLISH THAN 90% OF THE NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS

If you can pronounce this complete poem well, it's said that you speak better than 90% of the British population. The poem is called "THE CHAOS", written by Gerald Nolst Trenité in 1922 and shows the irregularity of English spelling and pronunciation. Have a try, below there's a video where you can listen to it being read if you need help.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

Video "THE CHAOS":

PARTS OF SPEECH

To start with a poem and some basic charts explaining the different parts of speech and their functions in English.

"TO ALL THAT LOVE THE FAR AND BLUE", A POEM BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

A week ago today, during the 2015 2nd BAC Graduation, our Galician teacher Miguel Mato, mentioned a poem by Scotts-man, Robert Louis Stevenson called 
"TO ALL THAT LOVE THE FAR AND BLUE".

We've searched the internet to find it, and here it is for you to read:

To all that love the far and blue:

Whether, from dawn to eve, on foot

The fleeing corners ye pursue,

Nor weary of the vain pursuit;

Or whether down the singing stream,

Paddle in hand, jocund ye shoot,

To splash beside the splashing bream

Or anchor by the willow root:

Or, bolder, from the narrow shore

Put forth, that cedar ark to steer,

Among the seabirds and the roar

Of the great sea, profound and clear;

Or, lastly if in heart ye roam,

Not caring to do else, and hear,

Safe sitting by the fire at home,

Footfalls in Utah or Pamere:

Though long the way, though hard to bear

The sun and rain, the dust and dew;

Though still attainment and despair

Inter the old, despoil the new;

There shall at length, be sure, O friends,

Howe'er ye steer, whate'er ye do -

At length, and at the end of ends,

The golden city come in view.

[You can find a Spanish translation @ our etc page or on the following links: 1 & 2  ]

INTERNATIONAL ROSALÍA

Galician`s most famous writer Rosalía de Castro continues gaining international status. A Galician teacher Xela Cuñarro, who is teaching in Ireland, wanted to show her students the legacy of this writer. Both Galicia and Ireland have the issue of emmigration in common, which Rosalía deals with in her works. So Xela chose "Adiós ríos, adiós fontes", one of the most universal poems of Galician literature. And here's the result, the students of St Mary's School of Mullaghbawn in Northern Ireland, recite her poem in Galician, English and Gaelic, as you can see in the video.

Galician version of this post @ ArquivosDoTrasno.

GALICIAN'S LITERATURE DAY 2011: LOIS PEREIRO

Luis Ángel Sánchez Pereiro alias Lois Pereiro (born in Monforte de Lemos, 16 February 1958-died in A Coruña, 24 May 1996) was a Galician poet and writer. The Día das Letras Galegas ("Galician Literature Day") will be dedicated to him in 2011.
He was born in Monforte de Lemos, in a family from O Incio. He studied in the school of the Escolapios, and began to write at the age of 15. After finalising the COU left to Madrid, where he initiated the university studies of Political Sciences and Sociology. After a stay in Monforte working in the familiar company, devoted to the glass industry, he returned to Madrid to study English, French and German. There he founded the magazine Loia with Antón Patiño, Manuel Rivas and his brother Xosé Manuel Pereiro.
In 1981, he goes to live to A Coruña, where he joins to the magazine La Naval. In this period he made contact with a group of poets participating in several anthologies.
Between 1983 and 1987 he travelled throughout Europe. He worked as a German, French and English translator of scripts and, especially, for television, dubbing conventional series (episodes of Dallas and Kung Fu).
He published two collections of poems while alive, "Poemas 1981/1991" (1992) and "Poesía última de amor e enfermidade" (1995). In 1996, year of his death, "Poemas para unha Loia" was published. It collects works of his period in Madrid, published in the magazine Loia.
Pereiro suffered from AIDS, but the final cause of his death was a liver failure. Officially and according to a sentence of the Provincial Audience of Lugo, after a lawsuit, the reason of his death was an intoxication by rapeseed denaturalised oil.

Lois Pereiro's poems have been translated into English. Here's one translated by Jonathan Dunne:
V
What can I offer the one who attempts me?
Numbered days of inert passion
and eternal love always shared
with the debt owing to an existence
redeemed for usurious payments
conjugating the verbs “live” and “love”
in the first person plural
reduced to the forms of the present.

What can I offer the one who attempts me
if I’m a loose thread of the hope
Penelope weaves
and unweaves?

WHAT'S A POEM?

Here's a poem by Charles Ghigna called "What's a poem?" in a slide based on Silvia Vardell's PowerPoint posted on her blog poetryforchildren.blogspot.com.

SOME INFO ON EDGAR ALLAN POE

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective-fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.
He was born as Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts; his parents died when he was young. Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan, of Richmond, Virginia, but they never formally adopted him. After spending a short period at the University of Virginia and briefly attempting a military career. Poe's publishing career began humbly, with an anonymous collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), credited only to "a Bostonian".
Poe switched his focus to prose and spent the next several years working for literary journals and periodicals, becoming known for his own style of literary criticism. His work forced him to move between several cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. In Baltimore in 1835, he married Virginia Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin. In January 1845, Poe published his poem "The Raven" to instant success. His wife died of tuberculosis two years later. He began planning to produce his own journal, The Penn (later renamed The Stylus), though he died before it could be produced. On October 7, 1849, at age 40, Poe died in Baltimore; the cause of his death is unknown and has been variously attributed to alcohol, brain congestion, cholera, drugs, heart disease, suicide, tuberculosis, and other agents.
Poe and his works influenced literature in the United States and around the world. Poe and his work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and television. A number of his homes are dedicated museums today.

Poe's best known fiction works are Gothic, a genre he followed to appease the public taste. His most recurring themes deal with questions of death, including its physical signs, the effects of decomposition, concerns of premature burial, the reanimation of the dead, and mourning. Many of his works are generally considered part of the dark romanticism genre. Poe also wrote satires, humor tales. For comic effect, he used irony and ludicrous extravagance. Poe also reinvented science fiction.

His influence in pop culture has been considerable and long-standing, with the works, life and image of the horror fiction writer and poet inspiring scrip-writers, composers and musicians from diverse genres for more than a century.

Selected list of works
Tales
"The Black Cat"
"The Fall of the House of Usher"
"The Masque of the Red Death"
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue"
"The Oval Portrait"
"The Premature Burial"
"The Purloined Letter"
"The Tell-Tale Heart"
Poetry
"Annabel Lee"
"The Bells"
"The City in the Sea"
"A Dream Within A Dream"
"Eldorado"
"The Haunted Palace"
"To Helen"
"Lenore"
"The Raven"