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Showing posts with label form. Show all posts

2018 Poem #30 -- Mythology Goes To the Hairdresser

by Kate Baker

Jehanne Dubrow’s “Penelope Considers a New Do,” published in her compilation Stateside, is one of my favorite poems to read with students who are studying Homer’s Odyssey as it puts a modern and alternative perspective on the mythology of circumspect Penelope, Odysseus’ long enduring wife. Dubrow’s poem is rich in symbolism and allusion as she channels Penelope’s tale, weaving it into her own story of being a military wife who is home while the husband is deployed overseas. There is even an audio version available, read by the poet.

Students can begin by close reading the poem, identifying the modern and mythical allusions, enjambed and end-stopped lines, and examples of alliteration as they discuss the implications of trying to change one’s hairstyle in attempt to better one’s life: how does one’s appearances dictate one’s mindset and perspective on life? Can cutting one’s hair really result in an improved outlook? Will magazines and hairstylists realistically offer solutions to one’s plights in life? Students can consider how Penelope has coped with Odysseus’ absence and compare/contrast her coping strategies to their own understandings of waiting and identity.

But the beauty of Dubrow’s poem is found in the structure: four stanzas of four lines each with each line indented so as to give the poem its shape -- anyone who has cut his/her bangs will recognize that the stanzas look like sections of hair that have been snipped on an angle. To extend the lesson, students can work in groups or individually to write or find other poems that are written in basic block format and rearrange the text so as to give it a symbolic shape or visual design. The rearranged and original poems can be presented to the class and students can discuss the artistic choices made in the arrangement. 

Further Reading:



English teacher, coach, and author Kate Baker is on the executive boards of the Flipped Learning Network and the New Jersey Council of Teachers of English. Adept at integrating technology in her classes using flipped-blended learning strategies, Kate has been recognized as a CEL’s TEacher Leader of Excellence for 2017, a PBS LearningMedia Digital Innovator, and an Edmodo Certified Trainer. Twitter: @KtBkr4 Blog: Baker's BYOD

2018 Poem #18 -- Through New Eyes

by Jason Stephenson

I read Cynthia Rylant’s picture book When I Was Young in the Mountains to my creative writing students during our memoir unit. I smile at the fact that the book was published in 1982, the same year I was born. As I teach high school, I am fairly unfamiliar with children’s book authors, so I was surprised to find another Rylant book on vacation in Houston one recent summer. The slim poetry collection, published in 2003, was titled God Went to Beauty School. In 23 poems over 56 pages, Rylant portrays God as a regular human with titles such as “God Got a Dog,” “God Made Spaghetti,” and “God Went to India.”

The titular poem, “God Went to Beauty School” opens the book. It is one long stanza with short line breaks, a dash of humor, and one simile. I read the poem aloud to my students and give them time to discuss it with an elbow partner. My Creative Writing 2 students rarely need prompting, but possible questions include:
  • What is so powerful about a human hand? 
  • How do you respond to God being described as a human? 
  • Was this poem blasphemous?
As a class, we discuss how the poem begins with short sentences but ends with one long, complicated sentence. The discussion of hands might lead us to the Michelangelo painting of the Creation of Adam, with God’s and Adam’s hands stretched out to one another. Even in the Bible Belt, most of my students are entertained and not offended by this poem.

My students write their own God-as-human poems in response: “God Got a Speeding Ticket,” “God Plays Golf,” and “God Bought a Gun,” just to name a few. We focus on emulating Rylant’s straightforward style, crisp line breaks, and deep insight.

Further Reading:


Jason Stephenson teaches creative writing at Deer Creek High School in Edmond, Oklahoma. He blogs infrequently at dcjason.wordpress.com.

2018 Poem #12 -- Letter to the Future

by Tyler Kline

In this exercise, students write a letter to a person living fifty years in the future.  First, read Matthew Olzmann's poem “Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years From Now” as a mentor text.

Students may write the letter to a specific person or to an anonymous "someone" like Olzmann does.  Encourage students to consider what they want to tell this person living in the future with some of the following prompts:  Do you want to share information about what is going on in the world right now?   Current events?  Celebrity gossip?  Do you want to share a fear, dream, wish or thought that you currently have?  Remind students that their letter do not have to be about anything monumental (example: Olzmann writes about animals becoming extinct) but what students write about should be significant to THEM.

As they write, encourage students to include a question to the future reader, something they would like to know from this person.  For example: "Do you still have the McDonald's Dollar Menu?" or "Who is on the one-hundred-dollar bill?" or "Are robots friendly?"

Olzmann ends his poem with the powerful line, "And then all the bees were dead."  Students can choose to end on any type of note they want -- inspiring, hopeful, forlorn, confused, etc.  Whatever their choice, encourage students to craft a last line that is as impactful as possible and to write this line in a separate stanza.

If time permits for discussion, students can share their poems with a partner.  The conference partner can pretend to be the reader fifty years from now and predict how this future reader would respond to the poem. 

Further Reading:


Tyler Kline is a teacher and writer from Pennsylvania.  In 2015, he was named the Poet Laureate of Bucks County, PA. 

Go Poem #18 -- Two New Haiku

by Peyton Price

Get off the laptop.
You’ll never have any friends!
Mom, these are my friends.

You know what you need?
An attitude adjustment.
“That sounds like garbage.”

A haiku is often described as a three-line poem, with 5 syllables in the first line, 7 syllables in the second
line, and 5 syllables in the third line. Each line should be a complete phrase—in this exercise, do not cheat and break a line in the middle of a prepositional phrase. (Hope you were paying attention the day you learned prepositions!) You should also know that haiku often reveal a “surprise” or shift in perspective in the third line. 

A haiku about people is sometimes called a senryu. Senryu can be ironic or satiric, and poets can shift between the perspective of two people to exactly that effect. In other words, senryu was made for teenagers.

What was the last time someone didn’t get you at all? 
Is there someone whose hypocrisy you want to call out? 
Did you ever think of a perfect comeback after it was too late? 
What was that conversation about?
Now, what was it really about?

Strip away the details and boil the situation down to a universal theme of misunderstanding, played out in 5 syllables, then 7, then 5.

Peyton Price is the author of Suburban Haiku, a collection of poems that lampoons life in suburbia using the traditional Japanese form.  


Further Reading:

Go Poem #2 -- Reversibles

by Jason Stephenson

What can poetry do? Many of my students initially think that poetry can rhyme and not much more. Once I’ve introduced free verse poetry to them, I like to share a poem with a different kind of format or structure.  "Refugees" by Brian Bilston is a reversible poem, one that can be flipped for an entirely different meaning. Reading the lines from top to bottom refuses refugees; reading the lines from bottom to top welcomes them. (This format of poetry is gaining some ground. Jonathan Reed made waves with his “Lost Generation” poem in 2007, which won 2nd place in an AARP video competition.)


In my classroom, we read the poem aloud from top to bottom, then bottom to top. I give my students time to discuss and react to the poem in their small groups. Then we share our reactions aloud. I might ask some of these questions:

  • How did you react to this poem the first time? The second time?
  • How do you think the poet wrote this poem?
  • What is the purpose of this poem?
  • Why might this poem have two perspectives?
  • Would this poem be more or less effective if it weren’t reversible?
  • Should poems be political?


To conclude this lesson, we might attempt to reach consensus on a name for this new type of poem. Reverse poem? Reversible poem? Flipped poem? Palindrome poem?


Jason Stephenson teaches creative writing at Deer Creek High School in Edmond, Oklahoma. Follow his work on Twitter at @teacherman82 to learn more.


Further Reading

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