ENTRY #11: A Deep Dive Into Poetry

In preparation for this weeks genre expert group, I really took some time to do some self-reflection with my own engagement with poetry. As a student myself I found poetry to be a drag, and I never quite understood the purpose. The big question to me was, why would someone write in this format?, and why does it feel like there are so many hidden messages? Why can't it be direct, instead of having to make analyze the meaning? I kind of related poetry to Jazz, both holding mysterious, deep meanings that I just didn't understand. I think that the reason the genre frustrated me so much at the time is because it forced me to be a critical thinker. I believe I was in 3rd or 4th grade, we were working on creating poems and our teacher had shown us some of Robert Frost poems. One in particular that I remember is "Nothing Gold Can Stay", I was so frustrated because I could read the words in the poem without any problems but I didn't understand what I was reading. In Tompkins (2012) chapter 7 on Poetry writing she mentioned that poetry is a "concise form the evokes readers emotional responses... poets choose words carefully and structure lines and stanzas in creative ways." (p.156). I'm wondering if maybe I hadn't challenges with understanding the meaning because I wasn't grasping the emotions that the author of the poem was portraying that nothing stays perfect forever, because at that age I wasn't able to see any challenges in life.

However, even though my experience with poetry wasn't necessarily enjoyable for me, I have witnessed in elementary schools the positives and excitement it can bring to students. I substitute at Thornell Elementary in Pittsford, and this month is poetry month, every morning a couple students come over the loud speaker and read a poem that they really like, or that is an original of theres. I think this is a great way to immerse a whole school into the genre, it also shows students that poetry can look and sound different. As Tompkins (2012) mentions in chapter 7 "Many students have misconceptions about what poetry is... they think poetry has to rhyme, or they're unsure how it should look on a page." (p.171). I think that when students are listening in the morning they can hear how different each poem is, some rhyme and some don't, some evoke happy/excited emotions while some bring emotions of sadness, anger. I guess a question of mine as a teacher would be is their a line of what emotions our students should be guided to write, or because part of the authors craft is being able to evoke emotions in the writing we allow our students to write portraying any emotion they desire?