Michael Rosen's article in the Guardian today describes the English curriculum as disastrous for poetry in schools, doing little to encourage the "juice and emotion" of how we feel when we read poetry.

He describes how poetry becomes servant to the testing and exam system, rather than promoting its prime purpose: to give us pleasure, surprise, solace and challenges through the shape and meaning of language. Instead of slavishly following the literacy matrix dictating what forms should be studied at particular points in the school year, he argues,  you need to let poetry "...fill up the spaces between the bricks".

You can have your say on his article at http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_rosen/2007/12/well_versed.html