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The Power of Poetry
Your timing couldn't be better.
April is National Poetry Month, which means we still have a couple weeks to gear up and get our kids ready to have some real fun. And I'm not talking iambic pentameter, either. The goal is to help kids fall in love with language, to demonstrate the importance of precision and to impress upon them the power of words.
Setting the mood: Brainstorming
Never have them write a poem before they've had a chance to read some poems. So immerse them. Start with music lyrics and magazine ads; search school and local libraries for student generated chap books. Even have them try out www.loc.gov/poetry/180 -- poet laureate Billy Collins has created a "poem-a-day" feature geared specifically for the high school student. It's terrific!
And surround them with books... lots of books. A nifty one I use is The United States of Poetry. Some of the poems have profanity, but the scope of language and culture is amazing. It has a companion video, too: the kids read the poems, then see and hear the authors reciting them. Because poetry is about sound and rhythm, this experience really sends the message home.
Draft 1: "Puke on the page"
I know it's gross, but the metaphor works. When they're drafting, I tell kids, "Don't hold back, just let go." I call these poem-generating exercises Aerobic Poetry and, with freshman, the focus is usually just getting them to make contact between pen and paper. So I often start with "Alphabet Haiku". The idea is to look at a letter and do the 5-7-5 syllable thing to describe it. Always show them models otherwise you'll get that "Huh?" look. Here are a couple of mine:
Q
One complete circle,
not quite satisfied alone
Craving a kickstand
C
It is not complete --
An open door for escape,
a chance to come home
Get the idea? I know it has rules, but for those who are paralyzed by the blank page, structure can prove liberating.
Another exercise that works well with kids who are more comfortable with poetry and are ready to make that leap toward better writing is the "One Liner". Go through your favorite poets -- the good ones -- and pick any poem that makes you feel, as Emily Dickinson once said: "as if the top of my head were taken off". Search for those lines that could become incredible springboards.
"While I stood there, I saw more that I could tell" - Black Elk
"I have been one acquainted with the night" - Robert Frost
"What was it you told me about your pain?" - Sherman Alexie
Have lots of choices; what speaks to you may not reach all your kids. Find lines that are funny, that ask questions, create an image, lines that vibrate with potential. Copy them on note cards and pass them out. Let them trade and swap, and give them time to write...Don't worry about that "stolen" line, it'll disappear in the revision stage.
Speaking of revision: "Picking out the chunky bits"
In keeping with my metaphor, since your kids have already "puked on the page", it's now time to clean up a bit. A problem with beginner poetry is you'll get a lot of the cliche and ordinary, those sing-song rhymes that make you want to find the biggest red pen ever made. But there are ways to break into those poems for that life-bearing marrow.
In his book On Writing, Stephen King shares something his high school teacher once scribbled on an essay:
"You need to revise for length. Formula: 2nd draft = 1st draft - 10%."
King says this comment changed his writing forever. And it's changed how I teach my kids. Here's what you do: tell them to count the number of words in their poem and jot it down. Now, have them move the decimal point to the left one space. That's the number of words they have to cut. For example, if they have 63 words, 6 of them have to go. Now I want to warn you, your kids are going to have an absolute fit. They will insist their poem is perfect and it cannot be changed whatsoever. Tell them you don't care. Tell them Hemingway never published a first draft. Tell them you won't let them go to the bathroom until those words are gone. Whatever it takes. Then show them how to do it...Always model the process. If they see how much you're willing to sacrifice to make a better poem, they'll give it a try.
Two more indispensable tools: a student-friendly thesaurus and time. The thesaurus allows their vocabulary to bloom while time helps them see their mistakes, giving them that emotional distance so the cutting and chopping isn't so painful. And please, have them read the work out loud. Poems are about sound and they will hear those unbalanced lines and repeated words. Your class will be noisy: all that puking, reading and arguing about language. But creation shouldn't be quiet.
Icing on the cake
So each of your kids has generated a half dozen great poems, now what? Buy some cheap frames from Wal-Mart for the kids to publish their favorite work or, in the spirit of The United States of Poetry video, have kids storyboard, memorize and act out their poems on video.
Best advice? Find them an audience. Some schools hold their own poetry readings; mine organizes one every April. Open-mike nights for teen authors can also be found in many communities. I've taken kids to share their poems in the real world and the looks on their faces when an authentic audience applauds their work -- applauds them -- is unmatched. Encourage your students to submit their work to literary magazines, or generate your own class book or web site. The possibilities are endless.
The last word
Remember: it's about having fun with language. Not every project is going to be perfect; not every poem will make the planets align. Read with your kids; write with them. Model the revision process. Toss out what's awful and begin again. Show them that starting over is not the end of the world. It's simply another opportunity.
Alternative Network Journal March 2002 Page 24-25
All speeches and articles are copyrighted by, and are the property of, Laurie Thurston, and may not be reprinted without permission of the author.