When asked by the school inspector what he thought of poetry, a pupil replied that "it's all la-di-da and daffodils, isn't it?" In his primary school the boy had come across very little poetry, poetry to him was something arcane, not really related to his own life. He had studied no powerful, challenging, contemplative, arresting, quirky poems and had written very few poems himself. His teacher admitted that he was no English specialist, had received few ideas on the teaching of poetry and didn't know where to start.