“A rose is a rose is a rose, and is more than a rose. But a rose is not an ink blot. Nor is a poem.” (Laurence Perrine)
This essay offers some strategies for teaching poetry to students at the senior high level. I have used these strategies successfully with sixteen to seventeen year olds. I propose the following “rules” for introducing poetry at this level:
- Let the poet have something to say to students in this age range
- Let the poems be simple in structure and style (that they may be readily understood)
- Let the instructor select strictly limited aspects of poetry, so that she may establish them firmly
The two aspects of poetry that I sought to convey in my introductory sessions were that poetry operates through images and through rhythm.
We may assume that our students have been taught poetry in previous years. We would do well to find out what impression it made on them. At the best they have enjoyed it, have developed if not a thirst, at least a taste for it; and some may secretly read or even write it themselves. Alternatively, they may have a violent antipathy toward it; they may rejoice in the anti-poetic prejudice. But worse yet, they may be apathetic, prepared for the sake of the quiet life to go through an unengaged ritual, without ever being really touched, exhilarated, quickened or saddened by it: in short, emotionally cast. Discussion will not move such a position.
The instructor can reach such students only by employing all her wiles: crashing, or insidiously worming her way, past habitual defences of sloth, ennui or-an encouraging sign-violent disparagement.
General observation such as this essay cannot prescribe the proper technique for the instructor to adopt. However, once it is established roughly where the group of students stands in relation to poetry, time must be given to mapping out the best strategy. The following suggestions are offered for consideration.
- The instructor may read selected poems aloud
- Students may read selected poems aloud
- Students may read poems privately
- Students may make an audio anthology of poems they like
- The instructor may lead “chalk and talk” explanatory sessions
- The group may hold round-table discussions of selected poems, or a selected poem
- Students may write poetry of their own
- Students may make a written anthology of poems they like
- Students may write answers to assignment questions about poems
- Students (and perhaps additionally the instructor) may make an audio-visual appreciation of poems they like
It might be felt that the more distant the group is from an enjoyment of poetry, the more activity-centered the instruction ought to be; the less the group has to be persuaded of the merit of poetry, the closer an examination can be made of what that merit may be, based on in particular cases.
The slightly idealized description and recommendations that follow are based on work undertaken with a group of basically willing students of “average” academic ability. (The idealization consists in a presumption that the instructor gets her full allocation of instruction time and that students work moderately diligently on their assignments.) What follows is an account of a sequence of typical sessions.
Given certain current world events and the gender composition of the group, I decided to approach poetry through the medium of war poetry. A ploy seemed desirable to get discussion under way. I therefore distributed Rupert Brooke's The Soldier and read the poem in such a way as to suggest weeping violins in the background, with a sob repressed at “and gentleness/In hearts at peace”. After a pregnant pause I asked who in the group liked poetry. Pandemonium ensued. The more vociferous students made it plain that, if that was poetry, it should be consigned to a place whence it should never be recovered. But before long I was accused of not having read it “properly”. Further discussion revealed that the objector had noted the derogatory emotional load I had placed on the text. From this it was not difficult to proceed to the fact that poetry can be read in different ways; and that how we feel about poetry will influence the way we read it.
Presented with such a springboard it was not difficult to turn the conversation to a consideration of prejudice in literary taste; and a measure of agreement was reached that not all poetry could be bad. That in turn produced a challenge to the group-that if they took this section of the course seriously, I would guarantee to supply them with many more poems they would enjoy than they would dislike. The students seemed to take the proviso in good spirit; and a little more discussion suggested that rather more than half the group had some interest in poetry, and they were ready to be persuaded.
