Poem reaches A level syllabus

A weird discovery last night - that at least one set of sixth formers in a school in Croydon are studying one of my poems. Not sure if this is good or not but certainly intriguing. How it happened: a teacher friend of mine told me that the Forward Poems of the Decade anthology which includes my poem 'Wa/Harmony' (from Joy Change the Japanese collection) has been adopted as a set text for the Edexccel Alevel and AS syllabus! https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/16/poems-of-the-decade-anthology-forward-prizes Quite soon, or possibly as I write, students may be writing essays comparing and contrasting it to another poem in that anthology.

This is the second time a poem of mine has reached syllabus level ('The Character of Rain' from the same volume was and perhaps still is on an Open University module). In this case not only is it strange to be re-reminded of the trajectories a little poem can follow outside my ken or even my awareness - how true they are now something other - an arrow sent forth to find its own way; it is also interesting to observe how work can be altered and reinvented in the process of anthologising and reprinting. The Forward Anthology has extended my poem by three lines! 

How this happened: I was not involved in the proof-reading of that anthology. Indeed I did not even know my poem was in it until it was published, and it took quite some time for me to be sent a copy of the book. When I did receive one, I saw that they had actually combined two of my poems into one. In Joy Change, 'Wa' on page 8 is followed by a little separate haiku on page 9. Haikus are traditionally titleless so this one was set slightly further down the page to indicate a new poem (other indications also being its separate listing on the contents page and indeed the fact that 'Wa' is in six regular stanzas of four lines each, while the haiku is much shorter in line length and in entirety - only three lines). Yet in the Forward anthology the two poems are presented as one.

I quite like the transformation this effects in an odd way although I wouldn't have (and didn't) choose it myself. It fits with one of the collection's potential themes - the expat lost and trying to find her way/make new connections in Japan. It also comprises a good lesson in layout - exaggerate the difference in layout if you mix titleless haiku with titled poems. And it illustrates so well the unfinished nature of a poem or any text. How often we assume we hold the definitive text in our hands, forgetting to check if what we see has been reprinted, republished, revised, or indeed translated from another language - perhaps several times, each of these actions having an effect on the text whether it be through differing layout, page design and size, alteration of wording or indeed changes in the actual language used. Those essays we write, those ponderings we indulge in are in this text now that we hold in our hands or behold on our screen, but not necessarily or not at all in the text the writer originally wrote (and what after all does that 'originally' mean - I had many drafts of 'Wa' I am sure and there is certainly one alteration I would make now if I was me back then (if that is ever possible) and rather wonder if I intended to make then but forgot: adjusting stanza one so the  'pack' is not used twice - although there may well be a student now commenting on exactly why that double pack is so important. (Sorry for the triple brackets by the way)).

But instead I think I want simply to celebrate the different groupings and interpretations that editors and readers and happenstance can come up with. A poem is never finished, is flexible and open and so Forward and Edexcel have done me a favour I think, in that way.