Is this a Mallory Towers or St Claire’s storyline?

[Remotelawfirms]

There is a poetry competition and there is a story about 2 girls each claiming to have written a poem. The first line is in fact an Emily Dickinson 1st line. The teacher knows this and asks each girl to continue from the line “there’s a certain slant of light on winter afternoons”.
the amateur poem continues rhyming “noon” with “dunes”
the Emily Dickinson poem continues about cathedral towers.

please help - I was in “slanting light” on a walk with DH and telling him how influential this story was. 40 years later and I realise how much of my life it has shaped!

I don't think its mallory towers so I would say St Claires

Trebizon

I would say neither. Too highbrow for Enid Blyton. I might suggest Antonia Forrest-but I think I know them all by heart and I don't remember it....

I read that one. I think it's a St Claire's.

This happens more than once... someone in (I think) StC submits a poem called Despondency by Matthew Arnold as her own to catch out her English teacher who said all her poetry was terrible no matter what she wrote.

I don't think it is from either. Definitely not Malory Towers anyway. There's a storyline with Anne Marie in, I think, Malory Towers, although could be St Clares, where the English teacher always disses her poems so she gets her revenge by submitting a poem by Matthew Arnold, teacher says it's dreadful, she says oops actually it's by a famous poet so youdont know anything about poetry . I'm thinking that might be St Clares actually as I seem to remember dippy Alison standing up for the teacher.

It was in Trebizon for sure

Not Malory towers

Neither, it's the first Trebizon book. Not Blyton.

There is a poetry storyline in St Clare's, but very different.

I remember a line in a Trebizon book that went, “have you ever met up with someone called Emily Dickinson?” only to be told that she’s a long dead poet. I don’t recall Dickinson being mentioned in StC or MT books but I read them in the 1980s so I might be wrong.

It's one of the Trebizon books

I knew it wouldn’t take long.

It’s the first Trebizon book for sure.

You clever people. Has anyone got the book to find the scene?

https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/publishing/bookfinder/book/trebizon_-first-term-at-trebizon-by-anne-digby/9781405280631

That’s Trebizon. The main character writes the poem starting with the Emily Dickinson lines (I don’t think it’s even during a lesson, she’s just ‘inspired’ to write it, which seems TOTALLY normal for a 12 year old), then somehow it gets thrown away and is found by the sixth former who’s editing the school magazine, and is panicking because apparently the editor of the school magazine has to contribute a terribly clever piece of writing. And she can’t think of one, so she steals the poem, but doesn’t even realise that the first lines aren’t original. (I think she’s a bad character who deserves her downfall, but I can’t remember what’s so awful about her. Being bad at poetry?)

Definitely Blyton
It's fifth form at St Clares and the character is Anne Marie Longden who fancies herself as a poet

There is a new teacher who dislikes here and puts her down ,so she gets her revenge by leaving an Emily Dixon poem in her book without a title. The teacher says its awful in front of the class and Anne Marie tells her it is Emily Dixon and teacher is seen as a fraud

Definitely Trebizon. I have the book.

i remember the main character reads the real poem by heart “in a dreamy voice” when challenged by the teacher to do so.

’It falls through the trees and lies heavy on the dunes’ is the second line.

It’s from the first Trebizon book. Something about the school newspaper and the head girl/ editor having to write a poem for it, but she plagiarises an Emily Dickinson poem.

Yes; the main character proves her authorship by being able to quote the original Emily Dickinson poem.

This plotline is also emblazoned in my brain for some reason, but I definitely would have assumed it was Enid Blyton. I wasn't aware that I had ever read a Trebizon book.

Anne-Marie of Fifth Formers at St Clare's was merely guilty of writing long gloomy meandering bad poems and having no sense of humour about herself.

Anne-Marie submits a Matthew Arnold poem. Miss Wilcox disses it.

:)

is the scene online?

Yes, definitely Trebizon. The best of the bunch. They were my favourites back in the 80s and my daughter's 30 years later.

God I love mumsnet

Any good?