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Celebrating Poetry in the Classroom Bonnie Ericson
Talking Back to Poems: A Working Guide for the Aspiring Poet. Daniel Alderson. 1996. Berkeley, CA: Celestial Arts Publishing. 112 pp., $9.95 (paperback). ISBN 0-89087-795-5.
The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets. Bill Moyers. James Haba, ed. 1995. New York: Doubleday. 450 pp., $25.95 (hardback), $18.95 (paperback). ISBN 0-385-47917-4. (See Note for information about The Language of Life with Bill Moyers video series.)
Poetry is "in." The signs of poetry's popularity abound: poetry readings and performances, the awarding of the Nobel Prize for Literature to Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska, April as National Poetry Month, newspaper stories and web sites dedicated to poetry, magnetic poetry kits for the refrigerator. While we English teachers have long been aware of poetry's power to capture an experience, relate a story, or express an emotion, our students have not always been as appreciative as we might wish. Perhaps Daniel Alderson's Talking Back to Poems or Bill Moyers' The Language of Life can assist us in solidifying the positive attitudes already held by many of our students and in converting others still unaware of poetry's magic.
TALKING BACK: POEMS AS RESPONSE
Daniel Alderson's book is based on the premise that the reading and writing of poetry are strongly connected. Students who respond ("talk back") to poems by writing poetry, he contends, are not only likely to produce some worthy poems, they are also more apt to become sensitive and appreciative readers of poetry.
In the opening chapter of Talking Back to Poems, Alderson explains four qualities of poetry that he asks students to "notice" in their reading and writing: sound, imagery, structure, and meaning. These aspects are not mutually exclusive, but for purposes of teaching he maintains that one of these will predominate in many poems. The author, a high school teacher, guides readers through these qualities of poetrysound, imagery, structure, and meaning-by presenting and briefly discussing sample poems. (You may not wholly agree with the qualities Alderson has selected, or perhaps you may wish he had subordinated sound, imagery, and structure to meaning, or addressed the qualities in some other order. If so, I'd advise that you simply agree to disagree. Make some modifications in your own teaching when the time comes,...