When much of the world is dreaming about college basketball next spring, my students and I will be engaged in a very different kind of frenzy: Poetry March Madness, courtesy of NCTE and the wonderful teachers on the EC Ning!
While not even I am enough of a planner to be entirely mapping out my March lesson plans in the heat of summer, many of the teachers suggest doing some lead-up in the fall, and that I would like to do some thinking about while I’m mapping out my fall semester. I’m still working on my Edgar Allen Poe unit for the weeks before/around Halloween, so I may use some of his poetry to test out the idea. I scatter poetry in all my units, but am looking forward to doing a more intensive poetry unit as well.
So I want to hear it: what are the essential poems you think I should teach? This will be for ninth grade girls, and I’m willing to throw it open pretty far and wide. If you were picking poems to battle it out, head to head, in a tournament-style bracket, what would you pick and why? You can choose solo combatants, or pick a pair by the same poet, or a pair that seem very dissimilar but are united by your love. What poems do you think young women need to hear? What should every student get a chance to hear, at least once, in the high school years? If you could have one poem at your wedding, funeral, birthday party– what would it be?
I’m not too much for poetry, but I fell in love with e.e. cummings in 9th grade.
ee will definitely be there–he’s a good “gateway poet”!
What a great idea, Jackie! I love that there are teachers like you who ask these sorts of questions.
I recently had a sort of poetry battle regarding the poem that I wanted to read at my wedding: “Love Sonnet XVII” by Pablo Neruda and “Keep Reading by Phillis Levin (http://phillislevin.com/poems-keep-reading). I love them both, but I decided on the Neruda poem because it seemed a bit more accessible to the non-poetry-oriented guests, and easier for me to read without tearing up (although that remains to be seen—the big day is August 7!). Interestingly, there are several available translations of the Neruda poem, but this one (see below) speaks to me much more strongly than the others, which seem stilted by comparison. Translation is such a powerful force. I also highly recommend Phillis Levin’s collection May Day, in which “Keep Reading” appears.
Love Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda
I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
So I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
Marnie: I always post poems for my husband on Valentine’s Day and/or our anniversary, and in 2007, on my old blog, I posted that Neruda poem! Neruda is one of my favorites–someday, I would love to be fluent enough in Spanish to read him in his own language. I love his odes to everyday objects–they will definitely be in the mix, and I will throw this sonnet in as well. Thanks for the intro to Phillis Levin–that poem made me tear up as well.
I like Yeats and Wordsworth. Also, our Noemi!
Excellent candidates, all! Let me know if any titles in particular stand out to you!
I choose Nikki Giovanni’s “Woman.” I’ve loved it since a friend first copied it into a card for me forever ago.
http://poefrika.blogspot.com/2007/03/woman-by-nikki-giovanni.html
Oh Laurie, I really like that one, and it would be perfect! They can make literature connections too, especially after we read Their Eyes Were Watching God. Thanks so much for this one.
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