I ask them to take a poemand hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.
- Billy Collins, "Introduction to Poetry"
“ Hrmpfh!” my youngest said as he sat at the computer. It was a strange, guttural sound that came from deep inside, the kind of sound you could not try to make. It came out by itself, quite independently, a giant sigh of frustration and angst and confusion all mixed into one.
“What’s the matter?” I said. I’m lucky. Both my kids are very independent sorts, especially when it comes to homework. Ever since they were little they waded through their math and science and social studies alone for the most part, every now and then calling over for guidance, the way an explorer checks his compass just to make sure he’s on the right path.
The one exception has always been English. We disagree on this point. My kids will tell you it’s a curse having a mother who was an English major. I think it’s hugely fortunate for them. I mean, they have a built in editor for papers and school projects and there have been many times when my intimate knowledge of the MLA and APA formats has saved them.
April is National Poetry Month and in celebration of that (or as a way to torture the 39 or so eight graders in his classroom), his teacher has started a poetry unit. Last night was day one and if last night was any indication of what was to come, it could be a long month.
“I’m supposed to write an expanded paragraph,” he moaned. His puppy dog eyes did the rest. “Can you help me?”
Twist my arm.
“Your teacher wants you to respond to the poem,” I told him and there, in the laundry room, with the washer and dryer going at full speed, I proceeded to do a dramatic interpretive reading of one of my favorite children’s poets of all time. Twice, just to make sure I got it right.
I’m Making a List
I’m making a list of the things I must say for politeness, And goodness and kindness and gentleness, sweetness and rightness; Hello Pardon me? How are you? Excuse me Bless you May I? Thank you Goodbye If you know some that I’ve forgot, please stick them in your eye!
- Shel Silverstein
He rolled his eyes and laughed. So much for my ambitions for Broadway.
Poor poetry. It gets such a bad rap. I remember dragging myself through the classics too, writing notes in the margins, try-ing-to-dis-sect/each-and-ev-e-ry syl-la-ble/of-i-am-bic-pen-tam-e-ter/search-ing-for-the- mean-ing-bur-ied-deep-with-in.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree : Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.
-from "Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor Cooleridge
Huh?
It made it worse that my mother was an English major too. I would moan and groan to her as I stumbled face forward into words that at best seemed like Chinese alphabet soup, the little pasta characters floating carelessly in the tomato broth. I’m supposed to make sense of that?
And then one day, out of the blue, I stopped trying to figure it out. That’s the key, you see. Stop trying to figure it out. Just read it and see what happens. Just sit in it. Right there, on the kitchen floor. Right now. Stop what you’re doing and read this:
This Is Just To Say
I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox
and which you were probably saving for breakfast
Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold
by William Carlos Williams
Cool huh? What do you think of? What does it engage in your senses? Do you think about the last slice of chocolate cake that you were looking forward to eating when you came home from work? The moist piece of chocolate goodness that made your mouth water? That same piece that got you through carpool and 30 minutes on the treadmill and a days worth of meetings only to find that your husband had eaten it the night before, while you were asleep and he was watching David Letterman?
“So?” I said to my young poetry scholar as he sat in his seat in the little theatre of our laundry room.
And he wrote this:
This makes me think about how your parents always tell you to say polite things like the words in the poem, but the last line says how we as the sons and daughters feel, because we just want them to leave us alone.
Isn’t he a chip off the old block?
It’s National Poetry Month. Read a poem.
Do you have a favorite you’d like to share?