Ars Poetica: "Nuns Fret Not"

[primeideal]

I first encountered this poem during an Advanced Placement English class in high school. The interesting thing about the experience was that it wasn't really a class assignment for discussing or analyzing; we just got it as part of a sample test to practice reading and answering questions about poems. But it was a lot more entertaining to me than most of the stuff we were assigned! A lot of the practice test format (requiring us to answer multiple-choice questions about specific concepts like alliteration or rhyme) felt far from the close reading skills we had to learn in class, and looking back now it feels like the classes themselves taught me little useful for the tests (as compared with something like calculus or European history, where you had to learn a lot of new content within the class itself).

What has your in-school poetic experience been like? Do you enjoy discovering new poetry alongside classmates, or do you read more on your own?

Nuns Fret Not At Their Convent's Narrow Room


Also, if Wordsworth thinks students are contented, he's clearly never been to my college. :p