Objectives
An essential method of analysis will be using the "close readings" to analyze poems word by word and phrase by phrase to understand the ways in which students can then write and perform their own poems. The overall goal, beyond any distinct performance piece by a student poet, however, is to see how we might use artistic expression as a means of transforming our very turbulent emotions around language into an activist stance filled with clarity and conviction, accompanied by an equal amount of spoken and written fluency towards the subject of bilingualism. Can the practice of language arts, in sometimes hidden and surprising ways, be a source of devotion and heightened sensitivity to our common humanity, despite our varying levels of language fluency (in either Spanish or English, or any other language for that matter)? Can writer's workshops, such as those through the Philadelphia Youth Poetry Movement, within my own classroom, or facilitated by teachers like me around the world, allow for the turmoil of investigation to result in catharsis and ultimately, a kind of resolution and salvation?
The wonderful reality of reading and writing poetry is that it takes so many forms of expression: there is in fact something for everyone. To go a little deeper, there is something beyond just pleasure at a pretty or delightful poem, because poems that challenge, probe, explore, and even confront our sensibilities can somehow jar us out of complacency into a wider sense of our society, our selves, and even our very reality. There is a wonderful line by E.M. Forster in the Atticus Bookstore near Yale University that says "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?" We must write, as writing manifests those feelings that lay hidden in our souls, and in our hearts. Miguel de Cervantes once said "The pen is the tongue of the mind"; who has not heard or read some comment from a friend, a news investigator, and in particular a poet, and responded gushingly with "That's exactly how I felt!" Reading poetry opens us to a kind of self-invested empathy, in which we genuinely feel for the author of a poem. As the Merriam English Webster dictionary defines compassion, "sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it", and yet acting compassionately towards the speaker of the poem most definitely benefits its readers as well. This exhilarating and fundamentally human emotion is highlighted through the Philadelphia Youth Poetry Movement, Brave New Voices, and organizations like it around the country whose spoken word, slam, and performance poetry produces literature with an eye towards social justice, even when they are having a little fun. These groups are sprouting up around the globe in international circles as well, just as "Poetry Out Loud" has gone from being local to national to international.
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