Andrushka

When I included a research poem in my syllabus, the "other" in me (the voice of reason/society/normalcy/etc) was saying the whole time that it was a bad idea. Bad bad bad. I hate naysayers. The undying optimist tried to throttle Mr. "Other" and said, nah, it'll be fine, besides, who's making this syllabus, me or you? The answer, of course, was both of us. Anyway, after receiving treatment for my multiple personality disorder, I put it in the syllabus and made lesson plans to condense what I've learned about poetry in two graduate seminars into a couple class periods. The highlights of this lecture are my ten commandments of dominant mode poetry: 1. Show, don't tell. Let images make your argument for you. 2. Avoid gerunds, they're a copout. 3. Words like stuff, thing, and to be in its many forms are wasted opportunities. 4. Make the poem work on different levels of meaning. 5. Rhyme and meter are there to propel content, not the other way around. If they get in the way of meaning, drop them. 6. Don't assume your reader is an idiot. Allow them to find their own meaning and don't spell it all out for them in the envoy. 7. Formal verse (sonnet, haiku, sestina, etc) gives you limits to work with and can help in the creative process. 8. Pay attention to how the poem works on the page. White space can be employed to further your message. 9. The end of the line is the point of emphasis, so end on content words. Also, you can deemphasize the rhyme scheme by moving it to the interior of the line. 10. Create tension with line breaks. Enjambe! Ten is really an arbitrary number with cultural significance only, and I could think of more if pressed. However, I dare say if people took these to heart, the world would have less doggerel (which is not to say a bit of doggerel does not have its place). I realize that I cannot expect miracles, that these are just freshmen, that I was writing excrement at that stage of life, etc. Still, most of the literary achievements I received seemed to have been written by alien beings who had not listened to one word of my lecture, at least not the content words. It is very, very hard to give much feedback on an uninspiring poem. I tried to provide positive and constructive comments. But, when I read a few of my comments out loud to Ellen, she intimated that I am an unfeeling monster. I had been a bit harsh, despite my best attempts at gentleness. For a while, the naysayer I'd tried to suppress was coming back and I was going to keep poetry out of the freshmen comp. classroom. Then I got my glimmer of hope. I noticed that many of the students who regularly underachieve actually had the best poems. Now I have a defense for poetry in pedagogy (besides self indulgence). It may act as an equalizer, giving a different group of students a chance to shine. Of course, I'll have to test this theory, which means many more years of poetry assignments. Let's pretend this next story has nothing to do with the previous ramblings. On my way to work the other day, I was thinking about the stereotypical mean teachers. I thought of Zulfia's computer science teacher in Tajikistan that didn't let the kids program on computers until they demonstrated they could write code well by hand. I thought about the old-fashioned music teachers who don't let children touch a piano until they can demonstrate proficiency on a cardboard keyboard. With these brilliant pedagogies in mind, I decided that I shouldn't let students touch paper until they demonstrate to me orally that they can compose elegant and organized essays. Perhaps I'd allow them slates, but certainly nothing more permanent. I had a private laugh which I later shared with Ashley, then returned to the real world. Even if I regulated their paper supply, they'd just find it on the streets.

Posted by Scott on 02 March 2006 at 3/02/2006 03:53:00 PM | Permalink