Gavin Long
ENGL 112B
Prof. Warner
5-3-06
Poetry and the Young Adult
It is understandable that students have an aversion to poetry. Over the years, people have come to see this art form as pretentious, condescending and hard to understand. When one thinks of poetry one conjures up an image of either a smock wearing Beatnik or a stuffy, wig-wearing man from the Elizabethan era.
There are countless forms that one has to memorize; the villanelle, English sonnet, Petrarchan sonnet, pastiche, blank verse, free verse etc. Along with those forms are the hard to grasp meters: dactyl, trochee, spondee, and iamb. With all of these obstacles, teaching poetry can seem like a daunting task. In fact, in Literature for Today�s Young Adults the author recommends not to teach an entire unit on poetry to students. I believe that is nonsense.
A student can love poetry just as they can love prose. If an adolescent can be attracted to a certain book through the subject matter or style of language used in the story, the same can be true with poetry. Some poems can be very exciting and have great battles with mythic heroes and not seem like poetry, such as The Iliad or The Odyssey. Some poems, even in sonnet form can be entertaining. Billy Collins is a poet who can do this well.
All we need is fourteen lines, well, thirteen now,and after this one just a dozento launch a little ship on love's storm-tossed seas,then only ten more left like rows of beans.How easily it goes unless you get Elizabethanand insist the iambic bongos must be playedand rhymes positioned at the ends of lines,one for every station of the cross.But hang on here wile we make the turninto the final six where all will be resolved,where longing and heartache will find an end,where Laura will tell Petrarch to put down his pen,take off those crazy medieval tights,blow out the lights, and come at last to bed.
The former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins� work The Trouble With Poetry and Other Poems will serve as a central text for the unit. Collins� playful style is fun and interesting and teaches about form even though his poems are an example of a rejection of form. In the above poem �Sonnet,� none of the lines rhyme and until the very end of the poem he refrains from the use of iambic pentameter. He further parodies the villanelle in another poem of his.
The class will have assigned poems to read, and will be given handouts of formal poems by some of the better-known poets and then will be asked to compare the two. What they liked about either one and what troubled them. The poems will also be read aloud in class, because without reading the poem aloud the meter and the harmonic tones of the words might be lost. For the Petrarchan Sonnet:
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply;
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands a lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet know its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay
The students will be asked to show differences between the two poems.
Questions to ask the students:
� What does Millay�s poem accomplish that Collin�s does not?
� What are the differences in tone?
� What lines are the most powerful or the most interesting in either poem?
Then, assign the students to go home and collect ten poems that they liked and share their favorite one in class and explain why they liked it. There is a connection that can be made through poems, just as there is one that can be made in novels. If a teenager likes a book because they can identify with a character, they can enjoy a poem because they can identify with the tone, or subject matter in the poem.
In Bloom�s The Best Poems of the English Language, there is a good introductory essay about how to read a poem. This includes how to understand meter without tapping it out with a stick, understanding allusions and symbols, and appreciating harmonic devices like assonance and alliteration.
To cap off the unit, hold a poetry slam or a poetry reading for the students. Encourage them to try a form, perhaps by assigning different groups to different forms. This allows the kids to be creative and to see how difficult a poem can be to write. A sonnet may be fourteen lines long, but one has to make every word count. There are reasons poets choose certain words and not others, either to keep the meter of the line, or because it sounds better or perhaps it conjures a better image that reflects the message of the poem.
Also relating to the teens that music is just poetry set to a melody will help them make a connection with poetry. It�s a Rap!, could help bridge the gap between poetry boys who are into music. To aid them in writing poetry, have them read excerpts of poems from Paint Me Like I Am. It encourages all teens to tackle any subjects and has a variety of poems for teenagers.
Seeing that poetry units are usually taught to freshmen in High School, the poetry reading will be a great outlet for them to find their voice. Coming into High School can be a tough transition and may leave the young teens with a bit of an identity crisis, allowing them to write poems will help them understand themselves. Because language is a reflection of how people see the world that surrounds them, and poetry reflects this truth.
WORKS TO USE:
Aguado, Bill. Paint Me Like I Am. New York: Harper-Collins, 2003.
Bloom, Harold. The Best Poems of the English Language. New York: Harper-Collins, 2004.
Collins, Billy. The Trouble With Poetry and Other Poems. New York: Random House, 2005.
Ferguson, Margaret ed. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. New York: Norton & Co., 2004.
Jackson, Judy M. It�s a Rap! Rhythm and Poetry for Young Adults. Los Angeles: For His Glory, 2004.