‘Swift as a shadow…’ students embrace poetry

One of my best days of teaching happened March 18. Unfortunately, I was not in my classroom to witness it.

I was sequestered in Conference Room 2 of the district office with the rest of my EDL639 class. While there, my students and substitute teacher, who is an aspiring English teacher, were entranced by a guest speaker: Kima Hamilton, aka “Slamming DJ.” At the culmination of the school day, my substitute teacher called me, her voice transmitting sheer elation over the crackling semi-cell coverage induced by walls of the district office. She was energized, as were the students, absolutely in love with poetry.

The district’s English II core curriculum documents state that a student enrolled in English II should be taught to analyze literary elements and devices that include all of my personal favorites: metaphor, simile, personification, alliteration, etc. This can be easily achieved through a classroom poetry unit in which students are exposed to an array of poets, forms of poetry and oral interpretation.

On the first day of the unit, as I brightly announce that, “We’re going to begin our study of poetry today,” the students’ faces drop and a collective sigh permeates the previously pleasant aura of the classroom. Despite my excitement at the advent of this unit, my students tend to be a bit lackluster, with the exception of the one token student in the back that responds, “Yes! Poetry!” with a decisive fist-pump (thank you, token poetry lover). This has happened unfailingly in every class to which I have taught poetry, middle and high school.

In order to combat the negative connotation of poetry my students cling to so willfully, I begin my poetry units by teaching the pertinent sound devices and then ask them to analyze their favorite song lyrics instead of an archaic, erudite poem by, say, Lawrence or Poe. This piques their interest and then I begin to skillfully sneak in works by Angelou, Brooks and Collins; authors who are perceived by students as more contemporary and relatively benign. By the time I spring Shakespeare, Longfellow or Whitman on them they are clinically dissecting the poems in search of brilliant examples of device and never realize they are reading “real poetry,” as they call it.

This year during “Love of Reading Week,” I revealed the piece de resistance on March 18: Poetry Day. The Glacier View English II class had thoroughly analyzed a handful of poems and had written two of their own: an adaptation of “Where I’m From” by Lyon and an extended metaphor poem in which they were to write about themselves as an animal. They were humoring me, but still not sharing my passion for poetry. That all changed the day Kima came to my classroom to share a poetry workshop with my students. He is a performance-poetry extraordinaire. I received reports from my substitute, the principal, students, parents and my fellow teachers that the class was excited — nay, euphoric — after his presentation. They finally realized that poetry was something they could truly own; it is theirs as much as it is any other poet’s. They were inspired.

The next day I came to school and students approached me with yellow tablets of fast-writes and doodles and scratches in the form of stanzas and couplets. One boy I have never seen write more than two sentences in a 10-minute fast-write wrote a full page (single-spaced). More than 50 percent of the high school class has entered work in poetry competitions, and one day in class we had an impromptu poetry slam that was orchestrated by a group of students presenting a method for curing writer’s block. I am inspired.

Today I told students that the poetry unit is nearing its end and a collective sigh of disappointment again filled the classroom, but this time instead of setting my jaw with determination, I smiled. As all poetry units that I have taught begin with my students’ discontent, so they culminate with regret that the journey is over. In the years to come I will surely remember this class in particular as five of my students are now published authors in the Palmer Arts Council’s poetry anthology called “Voices Between Mountains.”

Again, I am inspired.

Claudia Berkley teaches at Glacier View School.