The Sound of Words: An Introduction to Poetry

Rationale

Why Poetry?

This summer seminar, "The Sound of Words: An Introduction to Poetry," has provided a shot in the arm for me and boosted my resolve to focus on listening by reminding me of the magical power of the spoken word and the immediacy of sound in our lives. I am now sure that poetry is a powerful way of enhancing the language of all students because poetry is a part of each individual's "struggle out of infancy and into speech." It is both "a passage into individuation and a bridge into community." ⁷

Poetry is a genre that most students already enjoy, but fail to recognize their involvement with. All of my students love music and do so, in many cases, because of the lyrics. And of course it's not just the lyrics they love, but the singing of them, their sound. They memorize the lyrics. Once I get my students to understand that the lyrics are poems set to music, they will be more prepared to expend the effort necessary to interact with the poem and to discover the beauty of it. Many students have already written poems on their own volition, but they are shy about sharing their words and work.

English teachers speak of the four components of language (speaking, reading, writing and listening), but we have no way of knowing when students are listening effectively, and we have no proven methods of improving students' listening skills. The title of this seminar triggers in my mind pictures of students involved in the performance of poetry: reading, reciting, listening, rereading, memorizing, responding and writing. By focusing on the sounds of poetry, students have exciting opportunities to hone their listening skills, in addition to finding their voices.

Poetry can help develop listening skills. Listening is also the predominant mode through which students receive as much as "90% of their in-school information." ⁸ In addition, listening is an active process because students create an aural text by tapping into their own background, their linguistic knowledge, and information from the message. Similarly, students create a poetic text that they may understand by tapping into their own culture, their linguistic knowledge, and information in the poem. Since creating an aural text and reading a poem dovetail so nicely, and since listening is neglected as a researched pedagogical process, I would suggest that poetry is a powerful tool for teaching listening skills that can be used across the curriculum.

Poetry is the most original form of language. It is part of our psyche because from the very beginning, recitation and performance were the bases of orality through which we transmit culture, language and spirituality. Poetry and poetic language are the bases of chant, religious ritual, cognition (mnemonic devices), and basic (the simplest form of communication) and transcendental (forms of communication involving altered states, trance, and religiosity) communication. Poetry is expressed through sound, an intrinsic part of which is motion because sound travels. As a matter fact, Langdon Hammer described poetry as a way to get at the sound of communication individually and generally. ⁹ Hass suggests that we are pattern-discerning animals as we listen to sound, and that we begin to hear rhythm and to notice patterns of repetition. He describes our attention to rhythm as almost instinctive, and rhythmic repetition as moving towards magic. ¹⁰ For these reasons, I would venture to say that poetry is much more accessible than prose. Poetry also involves the condensation of language and is generally shorter than prose. Because the language is so condensed, students usually learn more about the intricacies of language.

In the American Literature syllabus, poets and poetry are present from the early period to the present. Teaching poetry in class can be regarded as a segue into teaching our students about language, about the power of words, about the beauty and complexity of poetry, about the accessibility of poetry, about diversity, about the importance of developing a voice, about their culture and its contribution to American Society, about role models, and about listening carefully and hearing the rhythms and nuances of language.

Focusing on the sound of words establishes a connection between poetry and music, an enriching component of the academic environment. Students love music and we can use this love of music to create more student-friendly and stimulating classrooms. Adolescents seem to be increasingly focused on the spoken word; rap and hip hop and poetry can make a connection to these forms of music. Last, but not least, focusing on the sounds of words makes it easier for students to become writers themselves. As writers, they learn not only to appreciate the intricacies of language and to use it more skillfully, but also to find a voice and identity.

Why These Poets?

I have selected four poets for my unit: Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay and Walt Whitman. I selected these poets because I believe that what they say has significance for my students. Their poetry also falls into different categories: Hughes wrote innovative poetry, very often with blues rhythms; McKay wrote the popular sonnet used in this unit; Frost wrote poetry mimicking the cadence of speech and very often blank verse; and Whitman wrote ingenious free verse. By using these poets' very different styles, I will be enabling students to experience greater diversity in how poets put together words, sounds and rhythm to relay their messages. Students will be required to memorize one of the texts we have studied for each poet. Memorization helps them focus on the sounds and meanings of the words, and gives them a sense of achievement, thereby enhancing their self-esteem. Memorization is also important because it is an indication of mastery.¹¹ Students will recite their poems to the class on specified days, and will compete for the Bard of the Week prize.

The work of these poets is accessible to students. I focused on poems by Hughes because of the cadence and blues rhythm of his poetry. I selected poems that have themes that would engage students. "Harlem" is a popular and well known poem that raises issues of keeping dreams alive, tying in very nicely with MLK's speech, "I Have a Dream." "Ultimatum: Kid to Kid" and "The Lament of a Vanquished Beau" Is age-appropriate for this population of kids. "To Make Words Sing" is just four lines long and has innumerable possibilities for teaching and activities. It also echoes the title of this unit to some extent. The last of Hughes' poems that we will study, "Mother to Son," is a beautiful, rhythmic poem that deals with a poignant topic. We can study this poem and write a title reversal poem of two stanzas: "Daughter to Mother" or "Son to Mother." Most of the students have had exposure to this poem. Doing it as part of this unit, should help them to focus better on the sound and meaning of the poem and assist them in making a shadow poem.

Claude McKay's sonnet, "If We Must Die," is an excellent sonnet for listening activities. His diction and rhythm make the emotions of his poem easy to hear. Students will research the background for this poem to give them an appreciation of how powerful it is, and how timely its message was for its audience. They will read this poem individually and in chorus to hear the emotion of the poem. Once we have read the poem and identified and analyzed the poetic devices employed by McKay to give it its power, they will do the exercise where they change the title to make it opposite and write a poem appropriate for the title.

Students will study three of Frost's poems. Most of them have already read "The Road Not Taken." They will listen to an audio recording of the poem read first by Frost, then by the teacher. They will discuss the differences in meaning based on the sounds of the two readings. They will read the poems "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening," and "Mending Wall."They will be introduced to blank verse. They will read the poems several times paying close attention to sound and meaning. In order to access the sound, students will learn about stressed and unstressed syllables and scan the poems. They will fully analyze the poems. They will compare these poems with natural speech to see if his "poetry is a reproduction of the tones of natural speech." ¹² These poems should all be engaging for students because they appear simple but have a complex message.

The last poet we will study is Walt Whitman. We will work with five excerpts from his "Song of Myself." We shall do the first stanza of the poem; the second excerpt is Stanza 6 and begins with "A child said" and ends with "And here are the mother's laps"; the third excerpt is Stanza 7 and begins with "And has anyone supposed it lucky to be born" and ends with "The earth good, and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good"; the fourth excerpt is from Stanza 10 (the last ten lines) begins with "The runaway slave came by my house and stopped outside," and ends with "I had him sit next to me at the table"; the fifth excerpt is stanza 16 of the poem that begins with "I am of the old and young" and ends with "Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these bearded lips." Although taken from the same poem, these excerpts differ in theme, emotion, speed, tone, and mood. The excerpts will be closely examined for these topics. Students will examine the excerpts for the devices Whitman uses to achieve diversity in his style within the same poem, and to infuse internal rhyme and rhythm in his poems. Students will write lines of poetry imitating Whitman's style.