A Christmas Poem

So much for my hiatus...this poem came to me via an email subscription and I felt compelled to share it.

Such a large part of the holiday season, no matter what or how you celebrate, is made up of memories. As I share my own favorite Christmas memories (those that I remember; there seem to be so few, but I guess that's an issue for another day) with my children, I realize that so much of this time of year revolves around nostalgia and the pangs of missing those that can't be with you. It can really be a sad time of year if you think about it in the wrong way.

Jeanne Marie-Beaumont writes about it far more eloquently than I ever could in "When I Am in the Kitchen:"

When I Am in the Kitchen
by Jeanne Marie Beaumont

I think about the past. I empty the ice-cube trays
crack crack cracking like bones, and I think
of decades of ice cubes and of John Cheever,
of Anne Sexton making cocktails, of decades
of cocktail parties, and it feels suddenly far
too lonely at my counter. Although I have on hooks
nearby the embroidered apron of my friend's
grandmother and one my mother made for me
for Christmas 30 years ago with gingham I had
coveted through my childhood. In my kitchen
I wield my great aunt's sturdy black-handled
soup ladle and spatula, and when I pull out
the drawer, like one in a morgue, I visit
the silverware of my husband's grandparents.
We never met, but I place this in my mouth
every day and keep it polished out of duty.


Read the rest here, at Poets.org. And subscribe to their Poem-a-Day email. It's worth it. And please have a safe and happy holiday season.

Holiday Hiatus

I think I'm going to shut it down here at The Small Nouns for the rest of 2010. There's just not enough time it seems to get anything posted.

But fear not, faithful readers, one of my (many) 2011 resolutions is to blog more. So check back in early January for our return.

In the meantime, why not check out some great bloggers in my blogroll, or peruse the Small Nouns archive.

Happy Holidays!

Poems I Haven't Been Reading

Seems like every month I say, "I think ____ is the busiest month of the year." An easy excuse for not getting anything done? Maybe. An annoying exaggeration? Probably. Either way, the poems are stacking up around me and I haven't had time to enjoy them. I've been trying to collect and save them from my various online sources, but I've barely had a chance to do more than scan the poems I've bookmarked. I keep meaning to go through them and identify the ones I like most and the ones I want to share in the classroom and here on the blog, but in all seriousness, I think December is the busiest month of the year, and I just haven't gotten around to it.


Luckily, though, I do have a little time this morning to read through some of my bookmarked poems, and I think I owe it to my faithful readers to share a few of them...

Our Bed Is Also Green
by Joshua Bell
Please speak to me only of the present             or if you must             bring up the past bring up only that which you and I             don't share. I know             this is a selfish thing to ask. Yes, as I have often             remarked, shore lunch             at hanging rock was lovely. Your hair and mine             stayed put. Later on             we didn't, as we do now, pull it from each other's clothes             as if for final proof             that we've been sleeping with each other. In the glorious             picnics of the past             we simply knew such things. The rock upon which             we sat, ran beneath             the lake, and was the same rock we were both looking             over to the other             side at. I almost felt, believe me, as if we were             two people. Person,             I nearly could have said, hold on. Instead, I used             the name we had             agreed upon. Not your fault. A name is useful, it helps             with the blankness             I am sometimes feeling in regards to you. I apologize             for saying this             out loud. You are not the blankness I am speaking             of. Plug your thought             or daydream into me, and they or I will often             fail to light. You are             beginning to see what I mean about the past, how I,             despite my facility             with pliers, and eye for detail, may not be suitable. What was             your name? I am             not kidding. What comes will run us through from the front, we             pull our way             down its length if only to see, at last what has ahold             of the spear-grip.             Therefore, the future, as a topic, is sadly also out.

Please read the rest here and let me know what you think. I'm enchanted by the layout of this poem. The two-column format with alternating indentations...I'm not sure I know what that's about (which my most faithful of readers know I love), but I like it. The symmetry makes me wonder if the speaker is talking to another person (hence the two columns) or if he's talking to himself (hence the mirror images). And the choppiness of the breaks and space and indentations...I bet this poem is terrific when read aloud by the poet.


On to another great piece, this one by Catherine Bowman and delivered through the Poets.org Poem-A-Day email. I really like list poems and litanies. (Remind me to blog about my all-time favorite someday soon). They're great as mentor texts for teaching poetry writing and they're fun to read for poetry novices and experts alike. This poem reads like a litany to me...

Provisional
by Catherine Bowman
When he procured her, she purveyed him. When he rationed her out, she made him provisional. On being provisional, he made her his trough. On being a trough, she made him her silo. At once a silo, he made her his cut. On being a cut, she made him her utensil. On being a utensil, he turned her downhill. So being downhill, she made him her skis. When she was his stethoscope, he was her steady beat. From beat she was dog, from dog he was fetch, from fetch she was jab, from jab he was fake. When he was her complex equation, she was his simple math. So she turned him into strong evidence, accessory after the fact. Read the last few stanzas here. There are great twists and turns here and I really enjoy line and  stanza breaks. Oh, it also has a terrific ending. (Choosing where to end a litany must be challenging.)  But I'm pretty sure I need someone to define the word "stet" for me. I thought it was a verb. If you have more time than me, check out some of the other good poems I haven't had gotten a chance to explore: "Jet" by Tony Hoagland "Dawn Dreams" by Rachel Hadas (This one will "insinuate all day at the corner of your eye." Brilliant.) "Interruptions" by Mary Crow "Alone for the Fifth Day" by Jason Shinder "The Coming of Light" by Mark Strand Hopefully you'll be able to take a moment and enjoy one or all of these. Let me know how it goes. (I don't know what's messing up the format of this post, sorry. I can't figure it out!)

Poetry in Movies: Take Two

I recently posted questioning the existence of poetry in movies. Can movies be considered poetic? In my first post, I discussed the film Inception, which has been stuck in my head since I saw it a few weeks ago. Last week, I believe I confirmed the poetic possibilities when I revisited one of my all-time favorites, The Royal Tenenbaums. It, too, has lodged itself in my brain--just like a good poem does.

It's certainly a different kind of movie, to say the least. Not everyone will find the dysfunctional Tenenbaum family to be as entertaining and endearing as I do. The trailer doesn't completely do the movie justice, but it certainly has a "love it or hate it" quality. You'll know right away if you're like me and this is a movie you'd adore or if you're not and this is one you'd rather skip:



But trust me, there is poetry woven throughout. If you watch this clip or this markedly sadder one, you can certainly find it. At least I think so.

Like so many great poems, this film is alternately touching and hilarious. It's certainly quirky and could be perceived as "weird," like so many poems (and movies, and songs...) that I love. It's not for everyone, certainly. But it's nothing if it isn't poetic.

Above all else, though, is the fact that every single part of its design is so intentional, from the colors used in the set design or the reappearing taxi cabs of the "Gypsy Cab Company." And as my students tire of hearing me say, even though it's absolutely true, there are no accidents in poems. Everything on the page is there for a reason. Every word is carefully chosen with deliberate intent. The same is true of The Royal Tenenbaums. And, thus, it feels like a poem to me.

What's the most poetic film you've seen? Let me know, please and be sure to check out the Poetry Friday Roundup at The Miss Rumphius Effect!

Poems I Love to Teach: Poems I Don't Understand

How's that for a title of a blog post? Maybe I should explain. I find (sometimes, not always) that I'm drawn to poems that are just a little out of reach, just a little too complex for me to truly understand the first time through. Maybe they're still even a little too complicated after five reads. Or ten. Sometimes it's that I enjoy trying to figure it out--but not always. Sometimes I just like to bask in the genius of the poet and recognize that he or she has created something beautiful, even if I don't know what it all means.

Take this poem I read today by Carey McHugh:

You will come first as a sound
and then      a breath

will come like a cold spell      a hipbone

    your lilt above the lake a crowcall
you will come as expected in

iron weather      will craft a blade

from the horse's winter stall

Please read the rest at Poetry Daily.

I don't really "get" this poem, but I like it. I don't even know if I can say why I like it right now. And for me, with poems, that's okay. It's so much fun to chew on a poem, ponder it for awhile. Come back to it over and over and discover something new about it each time. Even if I never find myself really grasping its "true meaning."

I don't react this way to all poems that I don't understand. Heavens, that would mean I'd be swooning in adoration over millions of pieces. But if I poem has some other amazing characteristics, other things about it that I enjoy, then I can give up on any desire I have to truly comprehend and instead just appreciate these poems for what they are.

There's another poem I love--it's called "Password" and it's by one of my all-time favorites, Naomi Shihab Nye. It starts out like this:

I have made so many mistakes
you might think I would sit down 

You really must read the rest via Google Books (and then run out and buy the collection it comes from).

There's so much I don't really "get" about this poem, including the title, but there are so many other things that are just so wonderful about it, like the first two lines, and her use of simple language, and the ending, and so on. I love it completely, but I don't completely understand it. Again, that's okay.

Which brings me back full circle to the title of this post--why do I love to teach these kinds of poems? Well, for one, they stimulate some amazing discussions. If you don't truly understand parts of a poem, you're bound to hear some new ideas from your students. It's one of the reasons I sometimes (but not often) wish that I taught secondary school--the discussions could reach tremendous levels, more so than at the elementary level (which isn't to say we don't have some great ones in my classroom!).

Also, poems like this help prove to your students that poems don't have to be understood to be useful or great. In both the poems I've mentioned, for example, there are countless things that you could "zoom in on," regardless of whether the poem makes sense to anyone in the room. This, as I've said before, is an important poetry lesson to teach.

And on top of all of that, it helps get rid of that whole "teacher as all-knowing ruler of the classroom" sort of thing. When a teacher can admit to students that they don't understand something, I think that's a big deal.

I've gone on for quite some time on this topic. Thanks for reading. I guess it's been awhile since I posted and I had a lot of pent-up poetry energy. And before we go, are there any poems you love that you don't really "get?" Let me know in the comments.

Poets of the Blogosphere

I follow a lot of blogs. It's a pretty good mix of educational technology and literacy instruction, for the most part. And while I follow many bloggers who write about poetry and who share poems of others and who discuss the teaching of poetry, I don't follow many blogs written by actual poets. I know they're out there. I guess I just haven't made time to find ones that suit me. (If there's any you like, please aid my search by passing them along!)

You also have to be a bit of a voyeur, it seems, to read writers' own blogs. It's an intensely personal experience to be able to read firsthand the thoughts and poems of a poet. Maybe I'm blowing this a bit out of proportion, I don't know. Or maybe this is true of all blogs (this one included?). Again, I don't know. Or maybe I'm just biased. Perhaps lurking in my mind is that "if they were any good they'd be published and wouldn't need a blog." But that seems like a mean thought to have. Regardless, I just know I find myself sometimes not all that comfortable with reading poets directly through their blogs.

There is one exception for me, though: Fox the Poet. It's the blog of an Arizona-based poet named Christopher Fox Graham. He shares a lot of poems as well as features about local poetry slams and spoken word events in Arizona and surrounding areas. (He's also introduced me to the concept of the "Haiku Death Match," for which I am eternally grateful). Anyway, I'm not sure how I came across this blog, but I find it to be a good read.

A poem posted on Fox the Poet this week stood out to me. It's called "Orion" and it starts like this:

MapQuest the miles in the sky
it's easier to find you that way
than to traipse the hills between us

(You really should read the rest here.)

You don't find the word "MapQuest" in many poems. I like that. I like it more because he uses it as a verb. I like nouns that can also be verbs. Especially proper nouns. (Tangent alert: Are words like this uniquely 21st century? Are there proper nouns/verbs from pre-2001 that I can't think of right now?)

In the rest of the poem, Graham goes on to make numerous references to different stars that make up the constellation Orion. On the blog, he provides a visual guide to help you out, but to be honest I'd almost rather not have seen it before reading the poem. It would have been more intriguing and puzzle-like. The poem's so good, I would have headed straightaway to Google (proper noun used as a verb!) names like "Meissa" and "Saiph" and "Rigel."

The poem is also long, sprawling, and has a stream-of-consciousness feel to it. These are all things I enjoy about it. A lot of the poems Graham posts are like that. ("This Country" is a good example.) It seems as though he performs at a lot of spoken word / poetry slam type of events and I think these characteristics would make his poems quite enjoyable to hear read live. I'll have to try to make it out to Arizona someday.

So please, give Fox the Poet a try and let me know which poets out there I need to add to my Google Reader. I think it's time I broaden my horizons when it comes to my blog subscriptions.

Spreading the Gospel of Poetry

So I found out yesterday that my proposal to present at the Michigan Reading Association 2011 Conference in Grand Rapids has been accepted. My topic will be poetry instruction for all grade levels. I'll be combining my own experiences from my classroom with knowledge I've gained from books, mentors, and other resources to present a program of poetry immersion for teachers. The purpose of the immersion, naturally, is to get students (regardless of age) to enjoy poetry.

I'm pretty proud of being accepted. I've worked hard over the last year-and-a-half to incorporate poetry reading and writing into my teaching. And I have come to be a believer in the power of poetry when it comes to helping students to become stronger readers and writers. I hope that I'll share my successes, my failures, my ideas, and the ideas I've gathered with other teachers so that they, too, can make poetry a part of their everyday classroom routine.

I've presented a couple times before at the Michigan Association of Public School Academies conference, but both times that was about educational technology, my other passion. This will be a slightly scary venture into brand new territory. At the very least, I hope to inspire a couple of people to immerse their students in the world of poetry (and to subscribe to this blog!).

The thought of presenting my ideas at a statewide conference is a bit intimidating, to say the least. But I am pretty excited about it. I'll keep you posted as the event draws nearer and I'll share my notes and handouts, too.