From: Hollis Rudiger <hrudiger>
Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2008 07:52:49 -0700

I am not so sure there is an either/or issue here, analysis or "being."

We are talking about poetry for children, and to some extent, teens. How we present poetry to all of the above depends so much on developmental ages. Poetry is, first, oral, then written. Children are first capable of understanding and enjoying oral/aural language, so of course, "good poems" for the younger set are above all things lovely to listen to-- rhythmic, sonorous, full of repetitive sounds, onomatopoeia, (but don't call it that yet, just BE with it!) We even talk to infants in poetry!

We know that what eventually makes a good reader is a strong phonemic awareness, and aside from its loveliness, good poetry for preschoolers helps foster that.

My earliest memories of poetry, circa age 3 include:
"I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree"

"James James Morrison Morrison Weatherby George Dupree took great care of his mother although he was only three."

"In a small house in Paris all covered with vines lived 12 little girls in 2 straight lines."

I memorized them, not because I had to, but because they were sung to me all the time, and they sounded fun to me and I associated the cuddliness of being various family members during the reading/recitation. That's what poetry was for me at it's roots, comforting. "Meaning" as a small child is meaningless- Think Jabberwocky

But then, as children get older, learning to slow down and even "dissect" the poem can be great fun too, both the process and the discoveries. Homonyms are fascinating to 3rd and 4th graders. Mapping those sounds to letters and words is a struggle at first for some, but there is that great age when puns and punctuation and written language become a playground- 4th graders (thanks Monica) absorb and produce great poetry as they begin to work with meaning, sound, AND shape. Concrete poems are fun.

>From 4th grade I remember Carl Sandburg's book, Rainbows are Made. I haven;t looked at it in years, but my copy had woodcuts, I think which I loved, and I remember these lines:

"The fog comes on little cat feet" and

"proud words are tall boots"

What fun it was to picture that! Those words are easy words. They are short. I knew them all, but they were arranged in ways which were surprising, and then, really cool!

What fun it was in 7th grade to learn enjambment --(thanks Ms Zammit) that where a line ends makes a difference and you can really mess with meaning depending on where you put the natural stop. Emily Dickinson was my favorite then, I still know a ton of her poems by heart- Why? because of the "sing songiness" (it was easy to memorize when the rhythm was so consistent) combined with the more complicated pictures she was making- What Middle Schooler doesn't love the idea that her brain could be even bigger than the sky!

Or to be able to scoff to a stupid boy:
 
"Doubt me, my dim companion!"

(of course I was sent out of the room for that killer statement, but I digress..) I remember my teacher asking us to write responses to the Brain is Wider than the Sky poem, and I remember how ridiculous we all were with our responses, all over the place--- But hearing from everyone, taking it apart and understanding each "piece" of the poem was really fun. Yes, analysis was fun, and there was no way I could have reached the understanding I did without the discussion.

I thank good teachers, starting with my parents and grandparents for always keeping it fun and kind of like an exploration.

When I was in a classroom, I used to "teach" (offer? share?) poetry using Legos. (This was 8th grade) Each lego was a word or idea and we would literally build cool word towers and structures which would then be tinkered with (REVISED, but shhh, don;t use that word!) into real life poems on the written page. Magnetic poetry does the same thing, students are so freed up by the notion of PLAY.

When I taught Macbeth, we used to pull great one liners out of various parts and make our own poems with them. Students were well on their way to really grasping the connection between strings of sound and strings of meaning. These two eventually made it into songs by aspiring 9th grade rocker-poets:

"Stars Hide my Fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires!"
"Receive What Cheer you May! The night is long that never finds the day!"

All of this to say what I think we all know but what is getting lost here, is that there is no one way to DO poetry, that at different developmental times in a child's life, different approaches are ideal.

I remember AP English when I was a senior. Our teacher was as old school as they come. He lectured. We listened. We regurgitated. Not the best way to learn, but possibly the best way to do well on a test. (which, like it or not, LBH, is the way of the classroom these days, unfortunately, and to ignore that is to lose one's job.) I remember the day he lectured on a Lawrence Ferlinghetti poem (I think? Kerouac? yikes!) and he was explaining the word eyebeam/I-beam, and how it was a word beyond just anatomy, it was also from the world of engineering and construction, which I had never heard before. I felt like an idiot, but I sat up straighter, wanting to know what else I missed.


So let's not throw the baby out with the bath water (some cliche's even sound like poetry!)

Hollis Rudiger Retired Teacher, Librarian, and Rabble Rouser Rochester, MN
Received on Wed 09 Apr 2008 09:52:49 AM CDT