Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use. Add those to the growing collection of class favorites. I have discovered that loving poetry is more like a long-term relationship than it is like a sizzling affair. Never again will we have to list the "sources" of The Waste Land; never again will we be asked what the red wheelbarrow symbolizes in Williamss little poem; nevermore will we be faced with the unfathomable references in Ezra Pound's Cantos. play the lyre What does the lyre look like? Also relevant to this category of concerns are techniques such as caesura (a pause in the middle of a line) and enjambment (continuing a grammatical sentence or clause from one line to the next). Angelou had a broad career as a singer, dancer, actress, composer, and Hollywood's first female black director, but became most famous as a writer, editor, essayist, playwright, and poet. I coached the students as they mined their writing for lines and phrases; I guided them as they dovetailed the language; and I assisted them in seeing how certain lines might fit together to create a scene. Ultimately, I served as the editor for the project, making suggestions for revision and offering them insight into what it might be like to perform the script. These types of outcomes seem much more connected to poetry's pulse than the ability to identify a poet's use of allusions or similes or metaphors. poetry, literature that evokes a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience or a specific emotional response through language chosen and arranged for its meaning, sound, and rhythm. However, poetry makes us experience the human condition at its most vulnerable. In entering any poem, we first want to find out what is going on. Here's a simple assignment: Walk over to your bookshelf and select an annotated teacher's edition of a literature anthology. I laid out the objectives for the sessions using the framework included below. This accounts for the preponderance of so much bad poetry even in anthologies that seem to be searching for something so much better, collections like Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle and Some Haystacks Don't Even Have Any Needle. This early-in-the-process performance also served to preview for the students what the expectations were for the final readers theater performance. MEIER: I would offer no special advice that differs from what Ive suggested above. In fact, the virtue of a great poem is that it can be interpreted inexhaustibly, from generation to generation, century to century, and even from culture to culture. In the third session, the students worked together to draft the readers theater script by choosing lines from their journals, excerpts from the published poems we had read together, and excerpts from their own poems to generate a document that shimmered with the same kind of unusual imagery and unexpected juxtaposition of words and phrases that we often find in poetry. We'll talk, maybe even disagree a bit, and perhaps open up the verse to a few new possibilities. I added a third goal: I wanted the students to work as a team to produce a final performance that they felt proud ofsomething that felt, for them, both challenging and satisfying. After all - there is no conclusive, definite definition of what poetry is. Students Response to Fat Is Not a Fairy Tale by Jane Yolen, Yolens Lines Students Lines, I am thinking of a I am thinking of a. fairy tale, movie star. Activities that encourage a collaborative approach, both in terms of students working together in imaginative ways to deepen their understanding of the texts and in terms of interacting with the poems dialogically in an effort to deepen their relationships with the texts, offer unexpected learning rewards. Or confusing? The emphasis in poetry is on the line. As a teacher presenting a poem to students for the first time, one must be humble and curious. We continued to revise the script as we rehearsed. Instead of facing the poem as a living document of human experience (Keats studying the urn in the British Museum, Williams looking out the window at the red wheelbarrow), the "symbols" of the poem are served up for memorization and regurgitationfor the final exam. Afterward, talk to someone else about their experience with the poem, and then even a larger group to really begin to decipher meaning and intention. Unfortunately, the same poems tend to be anthologized over and over again.). This activity served as a rehearsal for the scenes the students would develop for the final performance. It is about honesty of expression. In short, writing poetry (especially in these newfangled times, where anyone with internet can share their poetry) is an act of therapy. (Meaning ascribed to what is going on has a secondary function.) The effect a particular poem has on someone individually is crucial and will obviously vary from person to person. And yes, the idea of death lurked behind what that boy said, but his poetic response gave the kind of luminous answer that teachers have to be ready for. Certainly the bad poetry of great poets does. In a class Im teaching this semester, weve read an interview where Joy Harjo suggests that language is culture; to think creatively with language is to think creatively about how we make meaning out of experiences. Generating a Performance Project (Practicing Fluency) The students found this process highly engaging; they were invested in creating a quality performance, and they worked diligently. But no more so than others who have never written a line. The fundamentals of poetry and prose are the same. And the biggest complaint about it is: "I can't figure out what this poet is talking about. Almost all collections of poems are best experienced sequentially so that we can better understand the poets intentions. The materials collected here do not express the views of, or positions held by, Purdue University. The Bard is picked clean, and Hamlet, the fierce and philosophical dramatic poem, crashes to the stage in a pile of bones, all curiously resembling scansion marks. Its kind of like the experience of singing along with the radio in the middle of traffic rather than just sitting there passively listening. The emphasis in poetry is on rhythm. If a student does, invite them to describe how Greek or Latin poetry is measured. I compiled a list of my favourite poetry on this site a while ago. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice. (return to text), Academy of American Poets, 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038. I built on this idea and on the opening exercises by asking students to read another set of poems and to respond with questions that the lines brought up for them. (Poems look different than prose on the page, and that is one of the reasons they are shaped the way they are, in lines.) After this, reread the poem and focus on each stanzago stanza by stanza. Read more: Theyre a window, asking you to look out, trying to show you something. Or provocative? Some poems can be investigated exhaustively; others, completely or in part, leave us baffled. Poetry islanguage, and we use language all the time, every day. If you dont like something, fine. Edited with an introduction by Linda Welshimer Wagner (New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1976). Who among our profession hasn't been tempted to assign students the task of reading and then writing out the answers to these questions designed to help them demonstrate an understanding of what they have read? The rhythm is written as:da DUM. That is, to help you to defend ideas based on a text that is available to you and other readers. The directions for this assignment asked the students to look for interesting language, compelling ideas, and memorable lines: Excerpt from Doublespeak: Talking Back to Poetry, Director I: Scene Eight: Interrogating Poetry, All Readers: The secret of poetry, Director II: Is, Reader 4: The fact that its wearing smiley-, Director I: Is. TYLER MEIER: Above all,let curiosity be the guide. Experience is our objective; the interpretation of experience, a natural and laudable human activity, still comes afterwards. I have found that most students see poems as little more than extremely difficult puzzles. Answering these two basic questions about a poem opens up many other possibilities for discussion. When asked at the end of the first session what words they would use to describe their experience, the students included thrilling, helpful, inspiring, fun, and cool. If you think about it for a moment - it is incredibly easy to write an essay on poetry. Once you begin to explore your own writing, youll be able to read and understand other peoples poems much better. You can use poems to describe yourself, other people, or things you like. I asked the students to respond to Yolen's poem by writing a poem of their own that mimicked her structures, her tone, and her use of language. Motif: An image or action in a work of poetry or prose which is shared by other works. This will help you learn how to write and talk about poetry. Another poet whose preoccupation with everyday life cast his literary career into obscurity was Charles Reznikoff (1894-1976). Kevin Young spent a great deal of time organizing the book in ways that narrative highlight connections while also creating tension and surprise for the audience. Spoken word poetry is meant to be really emotive and powerful. cried one of the teachers. Soon, the students are itching to write. This format could be used to write about any topic. Don't worry about what a poem means, says poet Joy Harjo. The line of poetry is more focused, unique, and intense. Prose does. (This is a very sophisticated response, actually; an adult response. Poetry lines never reach the right hand margin. MEIER: I tell them to worry less about trying to grapple with the whole poem and some take-away from that totality, and instead, point at lines or images or moments in the poem that spark interest. Act II: Generating a Dialogue with Poetry. Andrew McMillan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. A vehicle of wonderment that should draw us closer has been turned into simply another academic job. Weve seen over the past couple of months how important poetry can be to people. (New York: Mystic Fire Audio, 1988). Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand. Usually the admission by the teacher that he is not omnipotent will send the students rushing to the rescue. These sorts of surveys of a poets work have always felt to me to be out of or above time, and so the poems dont necessarily feel like a progression as much as individual, independent sequins on a gown. (Poems look different than prose on the page, and that is one of the reasons they are shaped the way they are, in lines.) Don't crush twelve poems onto one page; and for goodness sakes don't treat the poem as if it was a wilting violet or a new form of disease by fancying it up in Neo-unctial script. When all the mystery is crushed out of a poem, when its wings are pinned forever, when it no longer makes weird noises in the night, when it has grown harmless in the collection book of the school text, the poem will have attained the state of perfect meaning which is death. She grew up in Hollywood, New York City, and Newport News, Virginia, What tone is created in the first six lines pls help.Dover beach, Of casement ledges where the moss has grown, Upon the straits; on the French coast the light. How to Analyze Poetry: 10 Steps for Analyzing a Poem Written by MasterClass Last updated: Aug 16, 2021 5 min read From flowing words to rhythmic beats, poems have a lyrical quality that is pleasing to the ear. 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