Teaching Poetry

“Poetry is the human soul entire,
squeezed like a lemon or a lime,
drop by drop,
into atomic words.”
 

            Langston Hughs’ portrayal of poetry as “the human soul” and “atomic words” illuminates the complexity of poetry; it is a distinct genre that focuses on compressing much meaning into few words. My students often indicate that the poetry analysis essay is the most difficult for them, especially when asked to analyze meter or theme. For this project, I first used a survey to assess my students’ attitudes about reading and writing poetry. I wanted to know what they felt about poetry as a genre. Also, I researched students’ appraisal of their basic poetic knowledge/vocabulary versus their actual knowledge by having them rate their knowledge and then show what they knew. Most were accurate in their self-assessment, with the exception of the use of line and the meter of traditional poetry. Students generally knew that meter involved stressed and unstressed syllables making sound patterns but were unsure about specific meters or line development. Through my research of the literature on poetry, I wanted to find methods both to encourage more reading/writing of poetry and to increase my students’ ability to analyze poetry, especially meter and line.

         A variety of research presented ideas for encouraging the reading of poetry. Carney-Dalton (1993) recommended having a classroom environment that supports poetry reading. Placing picture poems on the wall by both professional and student writers and having poetry anthologies readily available can increase the reading of poetry. Burk (1996) commented that in teaching poetry, instructors often are too eager to start explicating and analyzing poetry before students have read enough poetry. Often this promotes negative feelings towards both poetry and analysis. One of my students agreed, writing on her survey, “Analyzing poetry destroys poetry.” 
        Obviously, some analysis of poetry is an integral part of understanding poetry and being able to pass the AP test; however, students might be much more willing to analyze poetry if they read and wrote some poetry just for enjoyment—to discover what they like and don’t like. Burk (1996) describes a method of teaching poetry by giving students random volumes of poetry and having them read until they found a poem that engages them. He reports that, on average, the students read 22 poems before choosing a poem to respond to. This method promotes both reading poetry and the higher order thinking skill of evaluation. Five students’ responses on why they chose their poems indicated that along with reading, analysis was occurring. The very word engaging invites analysis, but in a much more positive way than “explicate this poem for Tuesday.” The engaging nature of poetry can disappear if teachers jump too rapidly into analysis or insist on analyzing every poem. I liked this idea of using anthologies. 
         Also in the action research, I had AP students respond to the attitude statement, “I enjoy reading poetry.” Seventy-three percent said they agreed with the statement, writing reasons for answers on the back of the survey. Students had a variety of reasons for enjoying reading poetry; they liked the challenge, the depth, the emotion, the symbolism, and the conciseness. Many answers focused on the emotional intensity of poetry: “When I read poetry, I recognize an emotion or experience I’ve had.”/“Writing poetry makes me think of other ways to say what I mean and to give my emotions voice.”
         Twenty-seven percent said they disagreed with the statement “Reading poetry is enjoyable.” Those that disagreed with the statement often indicated the poetry itself was not disliked—it was explicating it. Comments included: “I dislike having to wade through it and draw conclusions,” and “We have to rip apart the meaning according to the curriculum.” Additionally, an adamant voice complained about writing traditional poetry, “Poetry is an expression of our soul, and when we are confined to a certain rhyme scheme or meter, it sucks all the joy out.” It was interesting and somewhat ironic that in expressing their dislike of poetry, many of the students used visual, poetic language. The other reasons for disliking poetry included the obscurity of thematic meaning and the use of compressed language that that forced readers to slow down reading rate and stay focused.
Taking into account the varied nature of my students’ attitude responses, I tried to find expert advice and resources that would help students to read, write, and analyze poetry. Somers (1999) in an extensive work, Teaching Poetry in High School, emphasizes that the teaching of poetry needs to be both engaging and challenging. His work provides a multiplicity of resources on teaching the reading and writing of poetry, including ideas on selecting and assessing poetry, annotations for over 30 websites on poetry, appendixes with 100 anthologies, lists of contemporary poets, ideas on having students respond to poetry by talking, performing, and writing, and suggestions for teaching poetry across the curriculum. I found it a very useful source, smiling at his description of his imagined reader and his purpose for the book, “ a high school teacher who is fond of poetry and open to new approaches, new possibilities” and students who “will occasionally want to read it {poetry} after they leave us” (Somers, 1999, p. 10).
           One of Somers ideas that I think would appeal to high school students is using a variety of oral and dramatic ways to teach poetry. One example is his idea for teaching dramatic situation by having the speakers of a poem appear on a talk show such as the Oprah Winfrey Show. Students need to read the poem, analyze the speakers, and then script a half hour television show with those speakers. I tried this with Browning’s “My Last Duchess” and found it effective. Students not only analyzed the poem but also started researching psychology texts on obsessive/possessive behaviors. Overall, Somers (1999) presents some excellent ideas on teaching poetry. His entire text “assumes that anyone can like poetry, that a lot of poetry is approachable and fun. And poetry is fun to do things with—to talk about, write, write about, act out and so on. As teachers we can mine these veins…” (p. 10).
            Parani, a poet and English professor at Middlebury College, also argues that students have a natural desire to want to talk about and analyze works that we need to encourage: “It was T.S. Eliot who said criticism is as natural as breathing, and I believe that. When I read something, I want to talk about it. I wasn’t to compare it with other texts. I want to match my voice with the voice of the text. That is what it means to be a thinking person” (Parani, 2005, p.31). He writes on the satisfaction of writing two pages a day and the importance of human contact and discussion for creativity.

        Talking, readers’ logs, and general discussions on poetry are important; however, sometimes relying just on reading response and “natural” criticism is not enough. Feeling the emotion of a poem is important; Jason (1993) in the reference text Critical Survey of Poetry states that at times a reader finds a poem that he connects with “and the cosmos becomes more meaningful. This is the ultimate goal of poetry and when it happens—when meaning, rhythm, and sound fuse with the reader’s emotions to create a unified experience—it can only be called the magic of poetry” (Jason, 2003, p.4964). He asserts that a poem can create a deep intellectual and emotional response, but to be considered excellent, a poem should also “be able to pass a critical analysis to determine whether it is mechanically superior.” Students of poetry should be able to analyze “the element that poets have at their disposal as they create their art: dramatic situation, point of view, imagery, metaphor, symbol, meter, form, and allusion” (Jason, 2003, p. 4964).
I liked this idea of poems having to pass a critical analysis and thought it could be useful in teaching my students to explicate or as I learned from the Critical Survey of Poetry: explication du texte. To teach students to explicate poems, I made them critics who used the D-I-P F-A-M-M-S critical method. (Basically I created an acronym for dramatic situation-imagery-point of view-form-allusion-metaphor-meter-and symbolism.)
I found the acronym helped students to remember the various elements a poet can use. Also, the business world knows the importance of marketing—teachers need to use this too. I found that whereas “explicate this poem” was an assignment of woe; “become a critic and determine if this poem is mechanically superior” was more of an intellectual game that turned students into poetic judges.
However, the one judgment area that really presented difficulty for them was meter. Both my survey and practice AP tests indicated that recognizing traditional meter was a difficulty for students. Scanning poetry seemed to be a very quick way to kill interest in poetry, so I wanted to find some new methods for teaching rhythm. As I researched and attempted to find resources to teach this concept, I realized the importance of distinguishing meter and rhythm. Rhythm is defined as the “systematic variation in the flow of sound,” whereas meter is a method of “creating rhythmical patterns” (Minot, 1965). Meter from The Greek word for measure is the basic scheme. Rhythm from Greek for flow is the way the words of the poem move. Meter is like the abstract idea of the dance; rhythm is the dancer (Nims, 1974). Nims also uses the metaphor of a football game (for the non-dancers), stating that just as a football player needs to understand the diagram of a play, a poet or critic of poetry needs to be able to recognize meter. Scansion may seem as “lifeless,” as the diagram, but a quarterback who wants to play the game well needs an understanding of these symbols (Nims, 1974, p. 254).
Some novice poets and critics become convinced that concern for rhythm is a barrier against free poetry. One of my students even wrote that comment on her survey. However, Minot (1965) points out that artistic freedom is found in knowledge not ignorance. Poets can choose not to use traditional meter, but to make that choice, they should know what meter is. Minot recommends a method of “doodling” or playing with rhythmical techniques of past poets to get a feel for rhythm. He compares this to the sketching an artist completes for practice. For example, part of Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 2” written originally in iambic pentameter without any rhythmic substitution reads:

When forty wonders shall besiege thy brow
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
Thy youth’s pride livery so gazed on now,
Will be a tattered weed of small worth held.

Students could be assigned to play with this and convert it to iambic trimester:

When forty winters shall
Besiege thy brow and dig
Deep trenches in thy face
Thy youth’s proud livery
Will be a worthless weed.

The idea behind this is not to improve on Shakespeare but to improve one’s own ability to work with meter.

The poem could be shifted from iambic to trochaic meter:

Forty winters shall besiege thy lovely
Brow and did deep trenches in thy beauty’s
Field and youth’s proud livery loved so fully
Soon will be a tattered weed of little worth.

Finally, more free verse techniques could be used; it could be shifted for visual or syntactical rhythm:

Visual rhythm

When forty winters shall
Besiege
Starve
Torment
The rounded beauty of your brow,
Then
Your light step will
Limp
Pause
Trembling before the last descent.

Syntactical rhythm

Now your youth’s livery
Is our envy?
Now your smile’s light courage
Is our delight.
but then some forty winters will
wear you threadbare
And then your darkened eyes will
show our fear.

(Minot, 1965, 140-141)

Another method of teaching meter using Shakespeare was proposed by

Mary Barton and submitted as a detailed internet lesson plan ( Lesson Plan #:AELP-

LIT0002 ).



Appreciating the Bard's Art:
Rewriting Shakespeare's Epitaph Using Iambic Pentameter
An Educator's Reference Desk Lesson Plan

Submitted By: Mary Barton, English instructor
School or Affiliation: Bishop Carroll High School, Wichita, KS
Date: 1994

Grade Level(s): 9, 10, 11, 12
Subject(s):
• Language Arts/Literature
Description: The following is designed as a small group activity to help students appreciate Shakespeare's art as well as reinforce literary terms and concepts. Students begin to appreciate Shakespeare's genius as they struggle to compose six lines in iambic pentameter, knowing that he wrote tens of thousands in his plays.
Concepts Covered:
epitaph, iambic pentameter, heroic couplet, blank verse, elision
Background Information:
Attached to the beginning of the assignment is background information on the epitaph on Shakespeare's gravestone as well as the burial practices of the day.
Materials and Procedures:
A copy of the accompanying assignment sheet. In addition, classes should already be familiar with iambic pentameter, heroic couplets, and blank verse. Of course, the assignment may be modified in anyway the teacher chooses: four lines instead of six, or individualized epitaphs instead of group projects, etc.
Lesson:
Appreciating the Bard's Art: Rewriting Shakespeare's Epitaph Using Iambic Pentameter
During Shakespeare's time when church graveyards became full, old corpses were often dug up and the bones burned in large fireplaces to make room for the burial of more bodies. Also, it was not uncommon for grave robbers to dig up and strip a corpse after burial, particularly if the deceased was known to have been wealthy. Shakespeare hated this type of treatment of the body after death, so he wrote his own epitaph, engraved upon his stone at the Stratford church.
"Good Friends, for Jesus' sake forbear,
To dig the bones enclosed here!
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones."
Even to the end, Shakespeare knew his audience, and this little rhyme did the trick. People of the time were extremely superstitious, and no one ever bothered his corpse. The irony to this story, of course, is that while his epitaph served its purpose, it is little more than doggerel, hardly better than verse even the worst poetic hack could write. Who knows, maybe Shakespeare--with his boundless humor and heightened sense of the ridiculous--got a chuckle out of his little rhyme as some kind of self-deprecating joke.
Regardless of the original intent of the epitaph, however, it is time for us to right the wrong. The greatest writer known to the English language deserves a better epitaph, one which pays appropriate tribute to his genius and honors his literary contributions to all mankind. Your assignment is to compose a more suitable epitaph for Shakespeare's headstone now that the danger of grave robbers is over.
Please follow these assignment guidelines:
1. Write a minimum of six lines in iambic pentameter.
2. The first four may be in blank verse (or rhymed if you so choose), but you must end your poetic epitaph as Shakespeare did a scene--in an heroic couplet.
3. The tone of your epitaph must be eloquent and formal, paying serious homage to the literary contributions which Shakespeare made to the world. How you do this, however, is up to you. For example, you might choose to write your tribute using a metaphor, such as a golden pen. Or you could employ a simile, comparing Shakespeare's plays to the arias of heaven. Be as creative as you choose.
4. If you need to fudge to make the iambic pentameter work, you can cheat in the same manner Shakespeare did. Use elisions (word contractions) to eliminate a beat, or accent a silent syllable to add an extra beat.
5. Write out two versions of your final work: one regular copy and one divided into syllables and scored with the soft/stressed beats in iambic pentameter.
6. You may work on this assignment in groups of three.
7. Each group will be reading its completed epitaph to the class.
8. Scoring--20 points:
10 points for appropriateness of content: grace, meaning, and creativity
10 points for the technical accuracy of the iambic pentameter/heroic couplet
Good Luck! And have fun! (Barton, 1994).

      I have a large copy of Shakespeare’s epitaph that I bought in Stratford and actually remember to put on a bulletin board about half the time I’m teaching a Shakespeare unit. Invariably, when I do remember to put it up, a student asks me about it. I tell them about Holy Trinity Church and how Shakespeare was concerned enough that his remains remain in Stratford to curse anyone who moved him. Curses are interesting to modern high school students and created enough interest that I found this activity a very good one to surreptitiously teach meter without a formal scansion assignment.
To teach rhythmical poetry, I extensively used excerpts from Leaves of Grass.
“No poet has made more systematic use of repetition as a rhythmical principle than Walt Whitman” (Nims, 1974, p. 247). Students examined the repetitive nature of Whitman:
I am the poet of the body.
And I am the poet of the soul.

The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains of hell are with me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself….the latter I translate into a
New tongue.

I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,
And I say it as great to be a woman as to be a man,
And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men….

       Studying Shakespeare and Whitman were also excellent ways to introduce the poetic concept of line, which is the one essential characteristic that distinguishes poetry from prose.
In poetry, line length contributes to many artistic elements including rhythm, sound, and theme. Minot (1965) points out that poets tend to think in lines and use them as a foundation for images. Often many poems are begun with what will eventually be a middle or end line. Rather than being concerned with chronology as most prose writers the poet is creating meaning and sound devices through line. “The poet adds lines the way sculptor adds clay” (Minot, 1965, p. 116) and printers of poetry cannot randomly change line because if they do they are changing the art form. It would seem logical that writing exercises that had students learn the idea of lines would be useful in both writing poetry and understanding the unique structure of poetry. Sears (1993) developed a creative writing activity, “Revising the Line: A Simple Exercise” in which he created an eight step-technique which introduces poetry with a writing technique that changes prose to poetry. The ideas in his technique would enable students to better understand both the nature of line and the compressed thematic nature of poetry. This technique actually has a historical basis and has been used by many poetry teachers.
I decided to experiment with this first, before assigning this “prose to poetry” assignment to my students. I took a passage of journal prose describing a car accident I was in, which described my pain and confusion. The prose version started like this, “Stopped at the light, I felt the impact of steel hitting steel, felt my neck moving back and forth in impossible ways. Part of my consciousness realized a car had run the light, but most of me was concentrating on holding my neck and praying the stabbing pain would cease….” My students and I discussed that in this version line is not important. Sears (1993) recommends taking prose, compressing the feeling into imagery and figurative language and then deciding on a free verse or more structured presentation. This is an excellent idea lead-in for a discussion on choosing pentameter, tetrameter, or more of a “Whitman” free verse line. I chose a free verse version that personified vertebrae, emphasized sensory blurring, repeated the metal image, and used alliteration and assonance for sound devices. The poem version of this prose passion became:


    Innocence/Experience
Impressions blur, but no Monet beauty.
Twisted metal remains—steel without form
And me.

Contortionist vertebrae twisting into nerves
Protesting the unnatural position, shouting to
Be heard.

Impressions bleed together, sirens, x-rays,
White coats. “Anterior Cervical Discectomy
And fusion.”

Distorted senses, then darkness
Awakening to more pain,
More metal.

“Titanium plates, screws, cadaver
Bones,” words spoken, falling
Into emptiness.

Embarrassingly wet, overpowering tears
How could this happen to me?
Neurosurgeon retreats.

I think writing the poem (usually I’m much more of an analytical writer) and discussing what I was attempting to do, gave my students a comfort zone for writing. Next, I had my students write a prose passion on an experience that had strong emotion for them or their feelings about the future. They played with the passage using Sears’ line exercise. The results were an interesting mixture of both free verse and traditional poetry with definite use of poetic lining. Some examples:

Sword of Jazz
it’s the beat
it’s the rhythm
it’s the sound of your soul
lose your mind
lose your sight
let your heart take control
cool. calm. perceptive. attack.
clashing blades
whirling limbs
endless dance of the feet
playful here
spiteful there
spring back jump forth meet
smooth. soulful. randomized. go.
snapping fingers
clapping hands
keeping track of what goes
chords of joy
chords of tears
reflecting what’s most
-Kirsten K.

Growing Up
This is the end,
The end I say!
My childhood gone
This very day.

O, the end is near;
I feel it now!
Childhood has left
I don’t know how.

-Lynnsey H.

Spinning

Spinning around and around
Blocking out all sound
Moving my feet along the ground
My heart begins to pound

Vision turning
Faces blurring
Spinning around and around

Sliding by in an ever growing blaze
Almost all is lost to my gaze
Sights will forever fail to amaze
All becomes a growing blaze

Vision turning
Faces blurring
Spinning around and around

The dizzying ride comes to an end
My head begins to bend
Knees begin to crack
Falling onto my back

Vision turning
Faces blurring
Lying on the ground
-Liz K.

Confusion
A struggling soul
Wriggles and worms through the sands of time.
Motioning to the left
But knows what’s better is right.
Contemplating the consequences.
Weighing the possibilities.
Confusions consumes the heart
And strangles the mind.
Which path to take
What joy shall it make
Decide, decide
The World waits watching.
-Ryan W.
Long Walk
There is a long walk ahead of me
I have been told that since I was three
There is a long walk ahead of me
That much is plain to see
Step by step I shall take it
At least as far as I can make it
Although I may be prepared
I am still very scared.
-Mike K.
Escaping My Fate
Ashamed, I hide in the darkness
trying to escape these feelings of
despair, panic, and pain.
Terrified of what I’d done,
I ran ran ran away
As far as I could, but it wasn’t far enough.
I can’t escape these feelings
No matter where I hide or how far I run
They follow me, hunting me, haunting me.
As I ran fast, but not fast enough
To escape my fate, my past, my life
In the confines of my mind.
Why run? Confront what you feel,
Show them you’re not afraid
To face the darkness and conquer it.
I slowed, considered my fate
And my chances of escape
Then I stopped, turned,
And chased that which had chased me.
These feelings do not disappear,
But they no long hunt me, haunt me
For I am the hunter, and they are the prey.
I will not be defeated
By these feelings deep within.
-Gen M
These poems portray that my AP students, after studying poetic line, had clear ideas on how to use this concept. I was also impressed with their willingness to share their feelings—many a little scared about leaving high school behind this year—some frightened by the challenges of life, but determined not to be defeated.
Researching the teaching of poetry has given me some thought-provoking ideas on how I can improve my teaching of this genre. Knapp (2002) metaphorically presented the dilemma of teaching poetry, arguing that English instructors often find themselves trapped between “the Scylla of patrician objectivity and the Charybdis of rampant subjectivity…with classroom discussions of poetry” (p. 719). To be successful in teaching poetry both subjective discussion and objective analysis are vital.
The poet Dana Gioia (1992) in the book Can Poetry Matter? Essays on Poetry and American Culture argues that the value of poetry is declining in American culture: “Daily newspapers no longer review poetry. There is, in fact, little coverage of poetry or poets in the national press….The National Book Awards dropped poetry as a category. Leading critics rarely review it. In fact, virtually no one reviews it except other poets” (as cited in Somers, 1999, p. 20). In our technical, scientific society is there value in teaching poetry? In students reading poetry? In students writing poetry? I believe there is still intrinsic worth in the “atomic words” of poetry in the atomic age of man.
References
Barton, M. (1994). Appreciating the bard’s art: Rewriting Shakespeare’s epitaph in iambic pentameter. Educator’s Reference Desk. 30 October 2005 .
Burk, D. (1996). Poetry browsing: You can’t explicate ‘em all (middle ground). English Journal, 85, 82-85.
Carney-Dalton, P. (1993 Winter). In the fall I’ll return as a poet. Quarterly of the National Writing Project and the Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy, 15, 26-31.
Jason, P. (2003). Critical survey of Poetry: Second revised edition. Pasadena, CA: Salem Press.
Knapp, J. (2002). Teaching poetry via HEI (Hypothesis-Experiment-Instruction). Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 45, 718-730.
Minot, S. (1965). Three genres: The writing of fiction, poetry and drama. Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.
Nims, J. (1974). Western wind: An introduction to poetry. New York: Random House.
Panani, J. (2005 April). The considerable satisfaction of 2 pages a day. Chronicle of Higher Education 51:31.
Sears, P. (1993). Revising the line: A simple exercise. Teachers and Writers, 25, 9-11.
Somers, A. (1999). Teaching poetry in high school. Retrieved November 3, 2005, from
the ERIC database (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED431363).

Best,

Vickie