The Enduring Power of Poetry in Education
Educators recognize the profound value of exposing students to exceptional poetry. However, the conventional approach to teaching poetry often overlooks a crucial aspect: its inherent orality. Instead of presenting poems as static texts on a page, to be dissected and solved like puzzles, we should embrace their historical context as oral performances. By utilizing the interpretive and communicative techniques of skilled actors, we can unlock a deeper understanding and appreciation of poetry.
The Limitations of Traditional Textual Analysis
My personal experience as a student highlighted the inadequacies of the traditional textual method. In a British literature class, the focus was on analyzing the abstract form of the poems, rather than engaging with their emotional and performative aspects. Take, for example, the works of John Donne. I remember seeing page after page of elegant, clipped lines of verse. Blank spaces surrounded the skeletal stanzas, as if to say, “Focus on these, they are important.” I remember enigmatic sentences-“Our ease, our thrift, our honor, and our day, / Shall we, for this vaine Bubles shadow pay?” and strange rhymes-“west” and “based”- which I could not hear with the ear of my mind. The way we struggled over meanings in seminar suggested a poem was a puzzle, something for philosophy majors. I didn’t recognize the blood and earth I’d seen in my favorite novels-Lonesome Dove, The Lord of the Rings, The Big Sleep, even A Game of Thrones. This approach reduced poetry to a mere intellectual exercise, devoid of the emotional resonance and visceral impact that makes it truly captivating.
The Transformative Power of Oral Performance
The discovery of the YouTube channel "Spoken Verse," hosted by Tom O'Bedlam, marked a turning point in my understanding of poetry. His recitations of classic poems, delivered in his distinctive throaty drawl, breathed life into the verses. It was a miracle. I remember his recitation of Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” really hearing the voice of the speaker and the author. Here were character, drama, images, the sweep of epic travel, the rhetoric of great power-all carried on the vital instrument of voice. Suddenly, the poems came alive with character, drama, vivid imagery, and the commanding power of rhetoric, all conveyed through the vital instrument of the human voice. This experience revealed the power of orality in unlocking the true essence of poetry.
Poetry as a Source of Comfort and Meaning
In his essay "The Fire of Life," philosopher Richard Rorty, facing inoperable pancreatic cancer, reflected on the solace he found in poetry, particularly when recited from memory. He reflected on the calm he felt after reciting some lines by Swinburne: “I found comfort in those slow meanders and those stuttering embers. I suspect that no comparable effect could have been produced by prose.” Rorty’s emphasis on the power of rhythm and rhyme suggests that what a poem provides is not content to be learned or meanings to be understood but something else. He longed for more poetry, he says “not because I fear having missed out on truths that are incapable of statement in prose. Rorty's experience underscores that poetry offers something beyond mere intellectual understanding; it provides a structured emotional experience through sound and rhythm, impacting us both psychologically and physiologically.
The Intrinsic Connection Between Poetry and Music
Before a poem is a text, it is a performance, evidenced by its long connection with music. The Ancient Greek mousikḗ”-the origin of our word music, meaning the arts of the Muses-meant both the lyrics of musical songs and instrumental harmonies themselves. In our own context, contemporary spoken word or “slam” poetry exists on a continuum with rap and singing. The sharp distinction between poetry-something written down with an internal ordering rhythm of its own-and music that is accompanied by lyrics is narrow and scholastic. Like music, poetry provides a certain structured experience, a procession of sounds that have distinct physiological and psychological effects on us. It operates in words and concepts, but also beyond them. In all cultures, poetry has its roots in music, and something of the profound wordlessness of music’s meaning lingers in its rhythms and rhymes. This connection highlights the importance of experiencing poetry through sound and rhythm.
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Lycidas: A Case Study in Oral Performance
The best example of this phenomenon is John Milton’s Lycidas (1637). Written to commemorate the death of Edward King, Milton’s classmate at Christ’s College, Cambridge. Lycidas cannot possibly tell its hearers anything they do not already know. Milton’s poem was published in a commissioned volume alongside other memorial poems on the same subject. As doctrine, Lycidas expresses no more than this. But what a poem it is! About fifteen minutes long when spoken aloud, Lycidas is a crystallization of the ritualistic and oratorial aspects of poetry. Milton’s speaker creates an impeccably solemn atmosphere, appropriate for lamentation, invests his subject with a Renaissance declinist sense of the gradual breakdown and ruin of the world, the sense that time and death are eating away all public and personal meanings. Two-thirds of the way through the poem, Milton raises this sense of collapse to its apogee. The speaker brings the body of Lycidas-his poetic, pastoral name for Edward King-down to “the bottom of the monstrous world”, under the “whelming tide”, “wash’d far away, where’er thy bones are hurl’d”. We are made to feel and live the utter disintegration of meaning represented by Lycidas’s death, or by any promising person’s death, only for Milton to say what he might have said at any time: that just as the “day-star” sinks “in his ocean-bed”, Lycidas has gone down low so that he can “mount high” and live the eternal joy of God’s blessed saints. Whatever our beliefs, we more easily hear these bright assurances after we have experienced the terrors of death and meaninglessness Milton conjures before our sight. What is the meaning of Lycidas? First, it is a statement of the triumph of Christ over sin and death and the decline of the world. More intricate and hidden meanings abound, such as the peculiar protection of England for God’s purposes, or the vast insecurity of the poet, who has sacrificed so much for the immortality of fame, only to be confronted by the possibility of early death. But in a sense, these qualities of the poem are secondary. The primary quality of Lycidas is its own evolution-first a ceremony of loss, then a holocaust of meaninglessness, completed by an ecstasy of hope and order-a powerful evocation of contrasting states of mind and feeling. When Stonewall Jackson was questioned about one of the points of a lecture at the Virginia Military Institute, he answered by repeating his lecture, word for word. If someone were to ask me the meaning of Lycidas, I would be tempted to recite the poem from beginning to end. Until we feel that progression, until each vital part of it is vivid for us, we need not trouble ourselves about more complicated explanations. The poem's power lies in its emotional journey, from lamentation to hope, which is best experienced through oral recitation.
Reclaiming Orality in the Classroom
This is not to suggest that it is wrong to read poems silently to yourself, nor that all poets write their works explicitly to be heard rather than read. To be sure, there are advanced techniques of wordplay that depend upon being read. But if I propose a beginning to students, one that will acclimate them to the sweep of English poetry, it is to read poems aloud. Teachers should model the value of reading (and memorizing) poems themselves. This means experimenting with a bit of theatricality. Dialogue poems make excellent duets. Students are likely to remember the time an English and math teacher put on an elegant love-play. Fun, after all, is also an essential part of learning. By incorporating theatricality and encouraging students to perform poems, we can create a more engaging and memorable learning experience.
The Importance of Informed Recitation
Improving literacy outcomes involves many factors, but one that should not be lost is inculcating the love of poetry. If teachers are uncomfortable with reciting poems themselves, many quality recordings are available to high school and university students. The aforementioned Tom O’Bedlam has an extensive library of recited poems, all recorded in his signature Tom Waits-like voice. Occasionally a dramatic recitation can draw too much attention to the reciter, leading listeners to miss the poem’s subtler effects. An informed recitation is essential. The reader must understand the meaning of the words he reads. In this sense, he should have an “interpretation” of each line that communicates something in each reading section, rather than simply speaking unmeaning words. It is better to hear the poem for the first time when it is read by someone who understands what it says. The reader should possess a deep understanding of the poem's meaning and context to convey its nuances effectively.
Poetry as a Bridge Across Generations
Poetry is not “hard,” as students occasionally claim. Horace, Milton, Shakespeare, and Shelley did not set out to write enigma codes to be deciphered by scholars. They composed beautiful verse meant to live beautifully on the human voice. To recite poetry is to discover (as students) or rediscover (as educators) the ability of poets to speak down through the generations, using us as mouthpieces. It is a way to keep the flame of civilization alive. The great poems of classical antiquity survived the collapse of the Roman Empire and the chaos of the Middle Ages. By reciting poetry, we connect with the voices of the past, ensuring that these timeless works continue to resonate with future generations.
Infusing Poetry into the Classroom
During the twenty years since I wrote the first edition of Awakening the Heart, I have seen the transformational power of poetry. I've experienced it in my own life, and I've seen it in schools across the United States and around the world - from farm schools in Iowa to the classrooms of New York City to International Schools in Jakarta and Bangkok.A lot has changed in education in the last twenty years. During a period in history when some school communities are facing more restrictions than ever before, it’s crucial that schools provide opportunities to celebrate and value children’s varied identities, and to invite multiple perspectives and diverse voices into the classroom.Unfortunately, testing pressure and increasingly crowded curricula have caused some schools to relegate poetry to the margins of the classroom, sending the message that imagination is less valuable than other ways of knowing.What hasn’t changed is my absolute belief that we need to honor and nurture children’s wild imaginations through poetry.We need poetry now more than ever.Not just during times of grief and heartache, but every day. Poetry can help us live our daily lives in deep, knowing and authentic ways. It can be the doorway into literacy for so many children, and a pathway to knowing how we feel, learning about who we are, and connecting with others and the larger world.Children are natural poets. As are we all, when we speak authentically. The way you talk to your loved ones every day and night, tucking your children into bed, the first words you say to your partner when you wake up in the morning; the intimacy of your voice when having a cup of coffee with an old friend - that’s the stuff of poetry.So how do we teach poetry? I’m not even sure that teach is the right word. Maybe the question should be instead: How do we infuse poetry into our classrooms? How can we be sensitive to and supportive of children’s natural poetic sensibilities? How do we create safe spaces for vulnerability, for students to share their interior lives? How do we create a poetry environment - a space either physical or virtual - that encourages expression and creativity, that supports equity and inclusion and that respects and honors each student’s unique perspective?
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Cultivating Observation and Exploration
I intentionally use poems about poetry early in the unit. Billy Collins' poem "Introduction to Poetry" can get a class thinking and talking about the acts of reading, experiencing and analyzing a poem. This first poem is an opportunity to introduce students to the idea of marking up poems. They use colored pencils and work with others to color code a poem using a key they've created that refers to form and content. They can mark shifts in tone, repetition, perspective, figurative language, or any other features they've designated important. We then share our findings in a way that's inclusive of the varied experiences of different readers. My goals are for students to be active readers who notice details and engage with the work on their own terms.
Creative Response and Oral Reading
The experience of a poem is much different when hearing it read rather than reading it silently. Each time we look at a new poem as a class, we hear it read out loud twice by students before we start to look at it more closely. After the first or second reading, students give an initial response in the form of a one-minute sketch or sharing of a word or a phrase that stands out. As the unit progresses, I encourage students to bring in poems that resonate with them to share at the beginning of class. Last year a student introduced the class to "Tamara's Opus," this powerful poem by Joshua Bennett.
Model Poems and New Forms
During the unit students read and then write poems in these forms, among others:Memory poemsOdesI was raised by . . . poemsFound poemsPoems in forms of their own choosingIn order to push them toward fresh, new writing, my rules are simple: no rhyming, use sensory imagery, and cut and condense. Poem a Day from the Library of Congress, the Dodge Poetry Festival video on Bill Moyers' site, Poetry Out Loud, and Ten Poems I Love to Teach from the Poetry Foundation are all great resources.
Poetry Portfolios and Celebrations
Poetry portfolios are an excellent way for students to collect their work, complete detailed studies of poets, and focus on revising for a polished final product. I have used wikis for portfolios because they allow students to easily see and peer-edit each others' work, and they can be shared with an outside audience. I write along with the students to share the challenge and excitement of the work. Closing the unit with a Celebration of Poetry, where everyone recites a memorized poem he or she has written, is an affirming way to use the power of performance to recognize student accomplishments.
Transforming Perceptions Through Poetic Language
Helping students to (re)discover their poetic voices is powerful, vital and invigorating. Equally powerful is the opportunity for students to deeply connect with the experiences and words of others. I can recall encountering this quote from the late James Baldwin in my earliest years as a teacher and feeling as though I had finally closed in on a meaningful rationale for reading and writing, one that transcended college and career readiness. At the heart of Baldwin’s assertion is a powerful assumption about language: that it can alter people’s perception of the world. As we enter into these early days of April, National Poetry Month, I’d like to reflect on the transformative power of poetic language, in particular. I realize that making a case for why poetry matters is somewhat countercultural in the face of current curricular norms. Literacy scholar Janet Alsup has argued that the prioritization of rational knowledge, along with an increasing obsession in US education with all things quantifiable, has resulted in the marginalization of literature. With the advent of the Common Core State Standards in 2011, for example, came a new ratio of recommended “text types,” calling for a 30 percent emphasis on literary fiction and nonfiction, and a 70 percent emphasis on informational text. Common Core author David Coleman claims that this construction lends itself more efficiently to students’ mastery of ideas. To resist and counteract these curricular trends in US education, I could offer a litany of reasons why poetry matters. I could point to poetry’s ability to foster knowledge of genre, which is essential for anyone wishing to become a competent writer across context. But “How?” you may wonder. “How does poetry do all these things?” I feel there are two avenues, in particular.
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Distilling Language
Poetry has been described by others as “an economy of words.” In other words, a poem must say a lot, but in as few words as possible. Another way of describing poetry’s economy of words is to say that poets, as Francine Prose writes in her book Reading Like a Writer, “put every word on trial for its life.” In order for a text to function poetically, then-it must abide by the belief that words matter a great deal. To teach poetry, then-it is to teach people that language matters. It affects people.
Illuminating Experience
In addition to its economy of words, poetry illuminates experience. It creates meaning, not by floating above the tastes and smells and sounds of everyday life, but by engaging with the concrete realities we experience on an everyday basis. When students engage in the act of reading and writing poetry, they are essentially confronted with an invitation to awaken their senses, to seek out universal meaning in an otherwise mundane object or routine. If you want proof for this claim, check out “Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal” by Naoimi Shahib Nye, and let me know if you’ll ever look at the nameless people next to you in an airport terminal quite the same way. My answer to “Why poetry?” lends itself to a few suggestions for how to go about teaching poetry.
Poetry for Teachers: Exploring the City Through Verse
Poetry in America For Teachers: The City from Whitman to Hip Hop is a semester-length professional development course designed specifically for secondary school educators interested in developing their expertise as readers and teachers of literature. In this course, available for professional development, undergraduate credit, or graduate credit, we will consider those American poets whose themes, forms, and voices have given expression to visions of the city since 1850. Beginning with Walt Whitman, the great poet of nineteenth-century New York, we will explore the diverse and ever-changing environment of the modern city - from Chicago to London, from San Francisco to Detroit - through the eyes of such poets as Carl Sandburg, Emma Lazarus, Edna St. Deep study of the poems and poets on our syllabus will provide an opportunity to develop your expertise as a classroom educator. As you develop and practice advanced strategies for studying American poetry yourself, you also will gain rich new resources for the classroom. This course will introduce content and techniques intended to help educators teach their students how to read texts of increasing complexity. Poetry of the City is designed primarily for educators who would like to expand their own reading and teaching practice. Specifically, this course will develop teaching expertise relevant to the Common Core English Language Arts (ELA) standards in grades 6-12. Course participants will master advanced strategies for teaching students how to close read complex texts, and, relatedly, for facilitating productive classroom discussion centered on those texts. Poetry of the City features a combination of video tutorials and conversations, archival images and texts, expeditions to historic literary sites, sample classroom visits, and practical exercises designed to support skills development. Learn and practice the course’s four approaches to reading a poem, which also can be applied to reading literary texts more broadly (see Program Objectives). Laying the foundation with Professor New’s video tutorials, the course encourages skills practice through a customized poetry annotation tool that enables you to create and share your own close readings. You will also have the opportunity to apply these skills through a final lesson planning and delivery project. Develop the art of literary conversation and grow as a facilitator of classroom discussion. Literary texts allow us to explore language and build critical thinking skills together, discussing and debating what we have read as a community of educators. Through video footage, you will observe facilitated poetry discussions featuring a wide range of participants - students, teachers, poets, musicians, actors, athletes, and others. Experience the power of place through video excursions to the actual sites where our poets lived and wrote. The course is appropriate for educators at all stages of their teaching careers.
Learning and Teaching Poetry Together
I didn’t learn much about poetry as a kid. I read it. I even wrote it! But no one ever really taught me about poetry. I remember reading Beowulf and Shakespeare, and I have a vague memory of having to choose a poem to read aloud in class as part of a speech unit in middle school-I chose “Over the Misty Mountains Cold” from The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. Once, I attended a writing workshop with several other students from my school during which we wrote a collaborative poem with some poet whose name I don’t recall.And that was the extent of my formal poetry education.All throughout my childhood and teen years, and into young adulthood, I wrote poetry. I didn’t really know what I was doing other than I was trying to emulate what I read in some of my favorite poems and songs. How my young self would have loved to dive deeper into the world of poetry! There were so many forms to discover. So many themes to explore. So much to learn about poetic devices and language and rhyme. It was something I ended up learning on my own, through trial, error, and lots and lots of reading and writing. But poetry isn’t something that students should have to struggle to learn on their own. Parents and teachers can foster this in their homes and classrooms.Of course, not all kids are as inclined to learn about poetry as I was. Some of them will need more encouragement and hands-on instruction. But that doesn’t mean they won’t benefit from learning about poetry. Teaching poetry to children isn’t about helping them become great poets, or okay poets, or poets at all. Teaching poetry to children, I believe, is about giving them an edge in a challenging world.
The Benefits of Poetry Education
Poetry engages the mind differently than prose. Where prose is often straightforward and clear, poetry often has to be examined for meaning, which can help develop critical thinking skills. Exploring various poets will expose them to a variety of forms of expression and perspectives, especially when studying poetry from different times and cultures, which can help them appreciate the diverse world in which we live.Reading and writing poetry can give students an appreciation for language and wordplay, helping them learn to express themselves creatively. The limitations of poetry-especially some of the more restrictive forms-will help them develop stronger vocabularies and be better at communicating more concisely.And let’s not forget that poetry can be a lot of fun, both to read and to write. Poetry can be as silly as “The Crocodile’s Toothache” by Shel Silverstein, as somber as “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” by Dylan Thomas, or fall somewhere in between. But when a poet uses language and imagery (and sometimes meter and rhyme) in a way that engages the mind and inspires the imagination, what can be more beneficial than that?You may think that you’re not equipped to teach poetry to children because you’re not a poetry teacher or you didn’t study poetry in school. Maybe you’ve always been a little mystified by poetry yourself. If that’s the case, then the solution is to learn alongside them. The best way to learn to do something is to do it, and with poetry, the stakes are low, but the potential benefits are high.
Resources for Teaching Poetry
You can start today with one of the Weekly Poetry Challenges we’ve shared so far this year-haiku, odes, and riddle poems. And here are some great books to help you out further:A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms by Paul B. Janeczko, illustrated by Chris Raschka. This book introduces lots different poetic forms, with example poems, and includes notes on each form at the back of the book. A great introduction for readers and writers.Rose, Where Did You Get that Red? Teaching Great Poetry to Children by Kenneth Koch is a great resource for parents and teachers who want to teach classic poetry to children. This book includes simple, specific poetry lessons that the author has used in his own experiences in teaching poetry to students of various ages. How to Write a Poem by Kwame Alexander and Deanna Nikaido, illustrated by Melissa Sweet. This is a poetic explanation of how to write a poem, meant to inspire young poets to look at the world around them and dig deep into their imaginations before writing.Poetry anthologies are good resources for exploring and learning about different poets and forms. Some favorites are Treasury of Children’s Poetry edited by Angie Sage, The Bill Martin Jr. Big Book of Poetry, and An Illustrated Treasury of Read-Aloud Poems for Young People. You may also want to consider the forthcoming anthology from Bandersnatch Books, I’ve Got a Bad Case of Poetry, edited by Rachel S. Donahue.
