The Sound of Words: An Introduction to Poetry

Introduction

Long ago and far away, when I was a first year teacher in Guyana, I had a principal who loved literature. He recited poetry in his office which was adjacent to the faculty lounge. His favorite poems were "The Second Coming" and "Mending Wall." I heard "Turning and turning in the widening gyre . . . ." Just through listening to his reciting the poem, hearing the emotion in his voice and the cadence of his recitation, I learned the first stanza of the poem, and can recite it verbatim more than thirty years later. From "Mending Wall," I picked up, "Good fences make good neighbors." I realize now that listening to him reciting poetry was a powerful learning experience for me. It is remarkable that I remember that poem after such a long time and so many life changing events. My experience demonstrates the power of listening as a learning tool. In addition, the ability to remember well after so many years is something we all strive for in teaching out students.

My students are average students in an urban setting. They love their cell phones, find school work boring, forget quickly, and hate to do homework. They also love music and are addicted to their IPods. About a fourth of them write poetry. Hearing and performing poetry, more than reading it, will be a refreshing experience for them. They love rhyme and rhythm. As a matter of fact, we have a very active interpretative dance team. I just envisaged our dance team dancing to the beat of "The Weary Blues," a performance which will culminate this poetry unit.

During the three weeks of this unit, "Listen to the Sound of My Voice: Teaching Poetry to Make Language Whole," my students and I will focus on the sound of poetry and the art of listening to access its rhythm and meaning. This is an important process for my students since Robert Hass posits that "real listening, like deep play, engages us in the issues of our lives." ¹ We shall recite poetry; sing it; identify the beat of the poem; write, talk and write about it. All of these activities will be conducted using listening to the sounds of poetry as the basis because, according to Walter Ong: "Sound conveys meaning more powerfully and accurately than sight." ²

My interest in listening as a classroom activity was triggered years ago by a question raised by a colleague of mine in graduate school: "Who has the greater responsibility in a conversation, the speaker or the listener?" I had never really thought about listener responsibility, but I think it refers to extracting meaning from the aural message. Does the speaker have to make himself or herself understood? Or does the listener have a greater responsibility in accessing the speaker's meaning.Since then, my interest in listening has lain dormant. This curriculum unit is an opportunity to address this issue because it looks at listening to poetry as a way of strengthening the neglected component of language. I have not been able to find much on listening as a pedagogical activity except "Teaching Listening" by the National Capital Language Resource Center which states:

By raising students' awareness of listening as a skill that requires active engagement, and by explicitly teaching listening strategies, instructors help their students develop both the ability and the confidence to handle communication situations they may encounter beyond the classroom. ³

I plan to focus on listening as an active process that is intrinsic to understanding poetry because "the spoken word does have more power than the written word to do what the word is meant to do, to communicate." ⁴ Listening as an active process underscores the importance of listening not only in language arts, but throughout the curriculum.