Poetry Moves I Love: Allusion

I've already confessed to loving poems I don't fully understand. So now it's time for me to admit that I also love poems that make me feel smart. Don't get me wrong, I'm no genius and I was pretty useless as an English/Literature student. But I really like reading a poem that is a bit on the complicated side that I actually "get." I like the feeling provided by noticing things in poems that others might not.

Take for example the poem "Acquainted with the Night" by Robert Frost. I took part in a close reading of the poem during a study of poetic forms (it's written in terza rima). I chimed in with a less than eloquent but moderately insightful comment that I thought the poem was about death. My colleagues nodded in agreement and I think I even heard an "I hadn't thought of that." Inwardly, I beamed. I'm smart. They like me, they really like me! Definitely a good feeling.

Getting back to my original point, I also like the feeling provided by reading a poem that contains an allusion that I understand. Trust me, there are millions of allusions that go completely over my head, especially Biblical ones. But when there's one that I read and I know what the poet is talking about, it's a nice warm feeling. Me smart. Me know poetry.

Such a simple thing really, allusion. But it can completely change the reading of a poem. It's like opening a door you didn't know was there. Maybe it was hiding behind that giant armoire that's too big for the room. But when you push that baby out of the way, turn the knob, and open that door, the poem can change right before your eyes.

So even if it's a silly poem like "We Old Dudes" by Joan Murray, a riff on Gwendolyn Brooks's iconic "We Real Cool," or a reference to G.I. Joe's infamous Cobra Commander in a more adult poem like "[Sonnet] You jerk you didn't call me up" by Bernadette Mayer, understanding an allusion makes a good poem better and a great poem all the more pleasurable.

Of course, there are much more serious allusions out there--Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is chock-full of them (most of which are over my head); David Gascoyne's "Orpheus in the Underworld" is a nice read but I think it becomes downright moving if you know the story of Orpheus. Even a tiny allusion, such as Bruce Smith's reference to Miles Davis in "Obbligato" can provide a richer context and add to the enjoyment of a reading.

So while there's millions of references that will fly by me unnoticed and not understood, the few that I do catch make me happy. And you can't beat that.

I'll leave you with two poems that just might make me happiest of all, two poems that reference the same poet, William Carlos Williams. "An Apology," by F.J. Bergmann is wonderful and hilarious. It is not the most subtle poem, but my poetry ego gets a boost when I notice the not-so-obvious "This Is Just To Say" allusion in the fact that the SUV is "plum-colored."

And then there's this gem by Naomi Shihab Nye called "Honeybee:"

Dipping into the flower zone
Honey stomach plump with nectar


Soaking up directions
Finding our ways in the dark


Fat little pollen baskets
Plumping our legs


You had no idea, did you?
You kept talking about 


That wheelbarrow 
And chicken

Visit this page to read the rest (it's the third page in their little viewer thingy) and keep an eye out for allusions--you wouldn't want to miss an opportunity to feel smarter, would you?

More with Poetry Moves

In the fall, I posted about poetry "moves." This is the phrase I use (borrowed from teacher/author/poet Joseph Tsujimoto) for poetic techniques that make poems enjoyable to read.

I'm talking about moves constantly while I'm reading poems with my fourth grade students. My goal is to get them to notice how poets use moves so that they can incorporate moves into poems they write themselves.

When we talk about writing poems and using moves, I'll generally zoom in on one or two moves. They're young so I don't want them worrying about trying too many things. I don't want their poems to sound forced. By focusing on one or two, I think their poems become infinitely more pleasurable to read.

Another thing that helps is a model--we do a lot of patterning. I find a poem I like that I think they'll like AND that exhibits the move I want them to practice. We read and discuss it and then I basically say: "Write like that."

And for the most part it works.

This week we read "Things to Do If You are the Sun" by Bobbi Katz. This poem appears in one of my favorite anthologies: Falling Down the Page. (If you want to read more "Things to Do..." poems and read more about Bobbi Katz, check out this post by Elaine Magliaro at Wild Rose Reader. Elaine regularly posts her own "Things to Do..." poems and, like Ms. Katz's, hers are terrific!)

I can't find a published version of the Sun poem, but here are a couple of lines from "Things to Do if You Are the Subway," that Elaine shares the aforementioned post:

Pretend you are a dragon.
Live in underground caves.
Roar about underneath the city.


The moves I wanted students to practice with this kind of poem are: Surprise and Personification. When I say "surprise" what I'm really talking about is getting my students to write lines that are unexpected, lines that make me think "Wow, I never would have thought of that myself." As far as personification goes, I think these types of poems are great vehicles for bringing inanimate objects to life. 


One final note--this poem is a great example of a "list poem"(also called "catalog poems"), which are one of my favorites to read and have students write. I'll have to post more on these at a later date, I think.


I will say, in a final final note, that this writing activity provided one of the few instances where I wish I taught secondary school. I think older students could come up with much more poetic and creative lines for "Things to Do..." poems than my students have so far. We're still working on it, though, and maybe they'll surprise me. They've been known to do that. If they turn out, maybe I'll even share a few with you. And if you try them with your class, please let me know how it goes.

Poetry Moves I Love to Teach: Repetition

I try to share poems with my students that they'll enjoy. I don't always accomplish this, but I do a pretty good job, I think. I want them to discover the joy of poetry and the beauty of poems. And since I also want to help them become better writers of poems, I try to teach them to notice poetry "moves" in the poems that we read.

I stole the phrase "poetry moves" from a poet/teacher named Joe Tsujimoto. I had the pleasure of meeting Joe last summer at a poetry seminar. He said that he tells his students that "poets have more moves than Michael Jordan." A poetry move is essentially a common characteristic of good poems, a characteristic that makes a poem an enjoyable poem to read.

The list of moves is obviously long, but I do find that if I can expose students to them in their reading of poems that they will tend to try to incorporate the moves into their writing.

One move I introduce early in the school year is repetition. It's one of my favorites...I am drawn in by repeated elements and patterns in poems. Repetition is also a move that's easily imitated.

There are oh so many poems I could hold up as an example, but I think I'll choose one by Jane Kenyon:

Briefly It Enters, and Briefly Speaks
by Jane Kenyon
I am the blossom pressed in a book, found again after two hundred years. . . . I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper. . . . When the young girl who starves sits down to a table she will sit beside me. . . . I am food on the prisoner's plate. . . . I am water rushing to the wellhead, filling the pitcher until it spills. . . . Please read the rest of the poem here. I realize this poem has so much repetition in it that it ends up reading  like a litany, but it's a pretty good example of what I'm talking  about. I also like to get students to notice poems with more  subtle repetition. Then I get to ask them, "Why do you think  the poet repeats that?" THEN, once they're on the look out for repetition and similar patterns, they'll be able to start noticing breaks in  those patterns and we can talk about why the poet would break the pattern. It  goes on and on.