As a poet and an educator I am
driven by a desire to have poetry viewed as consumer friendly by young people.
I want them to enjoy the sheer magic of words the way I do. I want to share my
love of language in the hope that they will come to know poetry as one does a
friend.
What concerns me is that
in too many classrooms the teaching of poetry has been reduced to a clinical
examination. The poem as autopsy. The dis-aggregation of wondrous words by
teachers who feel little empathy with the poet’s desire just to be shared.
Moira Robinson, my former
neighbour, in her book Making My
Toenails Twinkle, reminds us that sometimes we miss the point of poetry
when she states,
‘If we are going
to start defining poetry by the number of times spring daffodils are mentioned,
or by measuring its degree of seriousness on some poetic Richter scale, we will
finish up with nervous breakdowns.’
If we truly want our
students to appreciate poetry to the point that they themselves can gain
satisfaction from their own written efforts we need to follow some basic steps
in introducing poetry in the classroom.
We should firstly
understand that poetry does not deserve to be pigeonholed into a neatly
packaged work unit that conveniently coincides with National poetry day. Poetry
should be a year long classroom staple, a friend to be valued through out the
year and a cause for celebration. Poetry can be used to begin the day, end the
day or introduced at a time during when it just feels right to share words of
wonder. Poetry should above all move us to feel a range of emotions and should
inspire our own writing efforts.
To feel completely at ease
with teaching students to write poetry, requires a knowledge that goes beyond understanding
what poetry is; it requires a teacher to understand how it is done; created.
This knowledge is essential to fully appreciating poetry for its uniqueness as
a form of expression. As Jacqueline Woodson writes, ‘Poetry is about joy and
urgency in tiny spaces.’
We must avoid asking
students to write poetry before they have been fully immersed in a close study
of poetry- its range and complexity. -Its potential and possibilities. We need
to dunk them in poetry soup! Young
writers need this time to get to know poetry and how to react to it. It is
critical that they understand how it is different to prose. The one criteria we must set when choosing
poems to share with students is to choose poems that have initial appeal. If we
as adults don’t enjoy a particular poem, don’t read it to impressionable
students. Our distaste, our reservation will be obvious to our reading
audience. Never waste valuable classroom time reading poetry, you don’t feel a
connection too. We should always
practice reading a poem aloud several times before sharing it with an audience
of young poetry consumers. Get the feel of the poem –its words and it rhythm.
Know it well, so you read it as it feels.
Children hear poetry from an early age. They eagerly recite it. The next
logical step is to get them reading it and from their discoveries and
observations, begin to create their own.
Poetry needs to go beyond
stylized Haiku and acrostic poetry using student names. Many teachers limit the
possibilities to this narrow framework. Their own trepidation about poetry is
on display here. Each year this is the meagre diet students are dished up.
Imagine how ‘Li’ feels being asked to write an acrostic poem using her name.
She would be envious of her classmate ‘Anastasia’, no doubt. Opportunities abound to expose student
writers to much more than this pale poetic portion.
Teaching poetry is not for
wimps. It requires the input of brave writers of all ages.
And
yet, poetry has for so long been poorly taught in too many classrooms. Words
like – abused, ignored, misinterpreted, misunderstood, underutilized come to
mind when one considers the history of poetry in schools. At the same time
there have been teachers and students who have been enriched by the power and
beauty of poetry. In such classes poetry has been presented with energy and
verve.- Poetry taught in this way is both wild and wonderful. It possesses the
potential to engage the imagination and provide real opportunities for students
to more fully engage in authentic learning.
Poetry
should be an essential ingredient in our classrooms –not some washed out, half
hearted afterthought. There exists in poetry a rich language source that can be
made readily accessible to the hearts and minds of students and their teachers.
Through poetry teachers have an opportunity to encourage a genuine sense of
mindfulness about what is being read, written and shared.
Running
alongside this aspirational goal is the fact that when poetry is presented in a
gradual and scaffolded manner students discover that poetry is easily accessed.
If we set up the best possible conditions for poetry to emerge then it’s more
likely to happen. So, as the guardians of poetry we must guide students to a
place where poems live and words and ideas abound They might just discover that writing poetry is enjoyable,
rewarding and brings with it the opportunity to learn much about themselves.
Jane Yolen refers to teachers as the code masters of poetry. Especially when
they write poems for children. Poetry is not for wimps…
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