“Poetry Reflection”

Blog 6: What does a “poetry reflection” involve?

What is a poetry reflection, one might ask? The truth is, it is a reflection of ones own interaction with poetry whether it be one’s own personal reflection of like or dislike of poetry, one’s own experiences of writing poetry, one’s own teaching or having been taught poetry, or it could be based on one’s own interaction with the poetry one has read. One of the most important aspects of poetry is the type of poetry that resonates with the one reading it and that can vary widely depending on the individual and their preferences.

This leads to a discussion about how I personally feel about poetry. I remember one of the poems that quickly became my favorite, The Loser, written by Shel Silverstein (Silverstein, S. (2019) (https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-loser-7/).

The Loser – Shel Silverstein

Mama said I’d lose my head
if it wasn’t fastened on.
Today I guess it wasn’t
’cause while playing with my cousin
it fell off and rolled away
and now it’s gone.

And I can’t look for it
’cause my eyes are in it,
and I can’t call to it
’cause my mouth is on it
(couldn’t hear me anyway
’cause my ears are on it),
can’t even think about it
’cause my brain is in it.
So I guess I’ll sit down
on this rock
and rest for just a minute… 

That was the first time I made a real connection to poetry and I loved it. I liked this poem so much that I recited it over and over to my parents. It is possible that I could remember all of the words without a copy in front of me, but as much time has passed those facts are a little sketchy. As I became a teenager I found myself liking other poems. More in depth and meaningful poems.

Some of these were by Mother Teresa. I personally have two that I can’t choose from that were my favorites. One was entitled, Do It Anyway. The other was entitled, Life Is.

Do It Anyway – Mother Teresa

Life Is – Mother Teresa

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.

Then I was introduced to Robert Frost and my most favorite poem is, The Road Not Taken.

The Road Not Taken – Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Amongst these were many others such as Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and many others. So overall, for most of my childhood I would say that I loved reading poetry. Poetry could take you anywhere and I loved the play on words and making things rhyme. Actually, I even wrote several of my own poems that I still have today, but haven’t read for some time. I was always taught that poetry had to rhyme, that one had to pay attention to meter, along with these the syllable counts per line which mattered as well, and of course that is what made a poetry piece, good or bad. It was great if it followed a pattern of abab or abcabc, but let’s not move outside that box. If we did it was not good writing or good poetry. Oftentimes, I would tend to disagree.

Shortly after I lost interest in reading or writing poetry and I found myself really disliking it by the time I got the Odyssey or any piece of Shakespeare. I couldn’t understand it at all. Why would one have to take British literature anyway when I lived in America and we were no longer under any British control? I was always taught to see what resonated with me inside the poem. I was told that what the poem was saying might be different for each person based on how they perceived the poem. I was taught to read into the poetry. Maybe this is true in some cases, but honestly when one has a vivid imagination, as I do myself, that may not be the best take on how to teach poetry to someone. That being said my interest in poetry declined.

For many years I despised reading and writing all together. Then I decided to return to college. My next experience involving poetry would come form a Spanish literature class that was required. Heavens to Betsy was my thoughts. What am I going to get out of this crap. However, to my surprise I found myself becoming interested, not so much in the poetry itself, but in the authors who wrote it. It was at this point that I finally realized that to truly understand a poem it is best to know some information about the poet who wrote it. At this point it started to become clear to me and I found myself enjoying the class even though I found the poems really confusing because many expressions in Spanish are just different and of course I was reading into them and with that came my vivid imagination.

No, that wasn’t the end I had one more Spanish literature class to take. There was one piece of literature we read which was a series of poems written by one poet to her lover. This thrilled me and I done my presentation on her. Maybe, it was to defy the opinion of the teacher which I disagreed with about who the last poem was written to, but all the same I found myself liking poetry again. However, I was glad once more that it was over.

Deciding to go to grad school, I was told that I needed to take an elective and wanting to graduate on time as soon as possible from grad class, I chose to take a poetry class as my needed elective. I thought here we go again. My first thought was who would even go to a poetry reading? That would be boring wouldn’t it? It was here that my love of poetry was rekindled by Adrian Rice. Of course, we were using mentor text to write, but I found this fun, challenging, and very exciting. I must say, I found myself really liking writing again and I was always looking forward to the next class.

It was here that I was introduce to prose poetry where patterns and rhymes didn’t determine the quality of the poetry. This was hard for me because of the restrictions in which I had been taught poetry and how I was taught to read into poetry. I remember me and Adrian talking after class once, he had just finished reading one of his own pieces of poetry and I was mesmerized. I could now see why people go to poetry readings. The connotations behind the piece that only the writer can truly bestow. He said, “Barbara, just remember to always read out of the poetry, not into it, that is how poetry is read.”

This opened up so much insight for me as we continued to talk about what made a good poem. When I think of poetry, I think of the play on words and symbolism one can use to entice the readers, I think of facts which can be added to a story to add fidelity, I think of truths which can be told explicitly/or not so explicitly, and I think of an imaginative or a true story being told that can be done so in riddles or word play to create a puzzle/mystery for the reader. What’s true and what’s not? It can be written in small pieces or it can be written in small chunks. I felt for the first time that I truly was reading poetry and perhaps understanding it better. However, it was at this time I also discovered for a fact that we need to learn about the author or poet to even begin to understand what they have written. When one writes what they know and what they have lived that is a poetry which can inspire others. I loved writing poetry again and was so thankful for this class. I was so inspired! I wanted to write more.

This lead me to where I am now. I am writing again in many styles. For the most part my writings have been done in the form of poetry. Once more I am delighted to read, write, and share what others and myself have written. Even though there are some poets that resonate with me more than others. Some of what we have read in class this semester I might not consider the best poetry, but instead simple thoughts. Portions of what we have read have slipped through my grasp and I don’t understand it at all. However, while reading Textbook by Amy Krouse Rosenthal I discovered that I really liked her simple style of writing, her simple thoughts, her honesty, and her questions. For the most part I did not find this work poetic, but instead interesting and a great inspiration for writing. It was here that I discovered the simplicity in writing, but how the simplicity could turn to an expanded moment in time from which to write.

My greatest inspiration from this class so far for writing poetry has come from Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson. Many of her pieces resonated with me and at times I felt she must have been living my life. However, I was not born back then so I knew that could not have been. However, my father-in-law speaks of many of the first poems Woodson wrote when she speaks of Ohio. He had been a police officer in Ohio at that time not far from where those events took place. Therefore, my husband grew up with many of these events being discussed around the family table gatherings.

Many of her poems brought memories of my childhood flowing back to me especially where religion was mentioned. I remember the fire and brimstone, the repentance at every meeting for every sin committed, and sometimes how burdening it felt to be such a sinner all of the time. The thing was I did not understand what I did during the week, month, or year to have to need to repent so much on meeting days.

Her poems remind me of the free prose poetry I learned about during the summer of 2018 with Mr. Adrian Rice. These poems told a narrative story, they could be backed up with documentation, and they spoke from another’s real life experiences or thoughts. Not everything needs to have a meter or rhyme to be considered poetry. However, one does need to speak from the heart and mind while captivating souls.

One of my favorites from Brown Girl Dreaming was the butterfly poems (Woodson, J. (2014), p. 249).

the butterfly poems – Jacqueline Woodson

No one believes me when I tell them

I am writing a book about butterflies,

Even though they see me with the Childcraft encyclopedia

heavy on my lap opened the pages where

the monarch, painted lady, giant swallowtail and

queen butterflies live. Even one called a buckeye.

When I write the first words

Wings of a butterfly whisper . . .

no one believes a whole book could ever come

from something as simple as

butterflies that don’t even, my brother says,

live that long.

But on paper, things can live forever.

On paper, a butterfly

never dies.

I think this resonated with me because my parents often made me feel this way. So, I called them the other night to share the “bat story” I shared with you previously. My dad was so pleased with it and complimented it. My mom asked, “who wrote that?” I asked why she was asking me that and she said, “because it is good”. I answered my mom by stating, “I wrote it, it was a story from our lives, don’t you remember the moment? Don’t you think I can write a good story?” Silence was all that could be heard from the other end.

Now, I can’t wait to put pen to paper, thoughts and memories to stories, truth and symbolics intertwined to mysteries, along with facts and histories into poetries. I love the challenge of writing a good piece of poetry, while holding true to my own thoughts or what I have witnessed, whether they be fact or fiction pieces. In reality I guess what I like most is the word play often involved in poetry and figuring out who the author might be talking to or about. However, at other times it’s the narrative history pieces based on fact that make each piece unique and special. All in all, I love both reading and writing poetry.

While reading poetry this week I came across a poem in Firefly July. There were three that I really liked for some reason; one by Robert Frost (I had never read this one), J. Patrick Lewis, Joyce Sidman, and Langston Hughes (Janeczko, P. B. (2014), Illustrator Sweet, M. (2014), pp. 38, 18, 17,16).

Dust of Snow – Robert Frost

The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued.

Firefly July – J. Patrick Lewis

When I was ten, one summer night,

The baby stars that leapt

Among the trees like dimes of light,

I cupped, and capped, and kept.

A Happy Meeting – Joyce Sidman

Rain meets dust:

soft, cinnamon kisses.

Quick, noisy courtship,

then marriage: mud.

Subway Rush Hour – Langston Hughes

Mingled

breath and smell

so close

mingled

black and white

so near

no room for fear.

Something simple, buy something yet strong enough to evoke a memory is a good poem. Each of these poems were exactly that; simple, strong enough to evoke a memory. I found a remembrance from my childhood in each of these poems. That is the beautiful power of a poem.

As far as teaching poetry, I think this can still be a challenge for teachers depending on the attitude their students have towards poetry. However, we have learned many techniques to just get the pen moving and ideas from head to paper. This is the first place to start. It provides a non-threatening environment for students. Rosenthal’s book is an awesome resource for demonstrating how simple a entry can be. Later, we begin to focus on what topics we can return to and actually write about. After doing this it would be essential to teach students how to focus on “one specific moment in time” without a whole day’s details. This is the harder part of the process and I believe is the one most challenging for teachers to get their students to understand. However, as we have been talking about writing in general there have been many ideas which have been given to help students do just that. Overall, I think I am ready for this challenge because I like to make other people think critically. I may not be the best at it at first, but I will surely become much better as I move through the process and grow along with my students.

To create a “poetry environment” in my classroom I would begin the process by getting a little about my students. I would ask probing questions such as, “Does anyone here have a funny story about one specific moment to tell?” This could lead into a discussion about specific poets and what their inspiration to write came from. They could divide in groups and choose from a list of poets to explore. The students could work together to see if they could learn about their focused poet and introduce their poet to the class. This would be done to demonstrate the importance and sometimes the need of knowing about the poet to be able to understand their poetry better.

Then, I think I would share one of my own poetry writings and show how it evolved over time. Afterwards, I think creating a poem as a class could prove essential as well. Maybe the topic would be a poem about, “Who am I?” Instead of “who am I” we could do do a collective poem about “who we are as a group” instead. Once this had been completed we could then branch out to a mentor text and learn how a mentor text can be used, not only as an inspiration to write, but also how it can be our mentor. At this point I could pull from some of my own mentor poetry while sharing my own work with the students and/or creating a new poem alongside my students.

References

Janeczko, P. B. (2014). Illustrator Sweet, M. (2014). Firefly July: A year of very short poems. Candlewick Press. Somerville, MA. USA.

Mother, T. (2019). Do it anyway. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRAt5K8dvVQ. Retrieved on Feb. 24, 2019.

Mother, T. (2019). Life is. https://jacquelinenashpoetry.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/life-is-an-inspirational-poem-by-mother-teresa/. Retrieved on Feb. 24, 2019.

Frost, R. (2019). The road not taken. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken. Retrieved on Feb. 24, 2019.

Rosenthal, A. K. (2016). Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal: Not exactly a memoir. New York, NY: Dutton.

Silverstein, S. (2019). The loser. https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-loser-7/. Retrieved on Feb. 24, 2019.

Woodson, J. (2014). Brown girl dreaming. New York: Puffin Books.