In addition to loving horses, I love rugby, and play on my university’s rugby team. My love of rugby was what prompted me to see the movie Invictus when it first came out in 2009. Morgan Freeman is in it, Matt Damon plays a South African rugby player, what’s not to love? But in watching the movie I discovered far more than I had thought I would about the trials of South Africa after its independence, and just how much Nelson Mandela did for his country. The movie is really amazing, and I ended up reading the book that inspired the movie as well: Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Changed a Nation, by John Carlin. It was a really excellent read and I am so glad that I read it, I highly recommend it to everyone. Oh hey look, here’s a link to buy it on Amazon

The title of the movie comes from a poem written by William Ernest Henley, also titled Invictus. I was inspired to create this ds106 assignment after I heard Morgan Freeman reading the poem. Of course, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to top a poetry reading by Morgan Freeman, but nevertheless poetry is often most effective when read aloud. So I created an assignment in which you choose a poem to read, and before you read it, you record why you chose the poem as well.

Here’s my example for the assignment:

In case you’re curious, here is the poem “Invictus” in full.