Playing with Poems: Rules, Tools, and Games

Background

Something Missing: Art and Poetry.

The integration of art with another discipline provides a deeper understanding of both disciplines and provides the child with multiple opportunities to develop knowledge and understanding. It is also fundamental in visual art for students to reflect in writing their work and the work of others. As noted in the National Core Arts Standards Anchor Standard 8, students are to "Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work." The visual art teachers in my district are also expected to support the Common Core Standards which are intertwined as the students read, write and speak about artwork. Poetry offers a unique pathway to these standards from art.

There is a long history of the interconnection of poem and picture. The pairing of poems and pictures dates back prior to recorded time. In sixth century B.C., Simonides of Ceos is quoted to have said, "Painting is mute poetry, poetry a speaking picture." ¹² Egyptian hieroglyphics and Japanese literature undoubtedly were early forms of poem and picture combinations but our lack of knowledge of their translations and loss of some of these works contribute to the fact that it is not clearly defined when artists began combining these two art forms. ¹³

Born in 1812, Edward Lear is known for being one of the first poets to incorporate the drawing in an interdependent way with his poetry. "All of Lear's poems were originally published with his illustrations…and the limericks in particular cannot be separated from the drawings." ¹⁴ The poems and drawings are self-described as "nonsense." Lear used invented words and even imaginary botany. Dr. Seuss continued use of nonsense words and characters in his poems and books. Describing the well-known children's author, Theodor Geisel, Philip Nel states, "the quantity and variety of new creatures demonstrates that, in terms of inventiveness, Dr. Seuss is heir to Edward Lear." ¹⁵

More recently and perhaps better known to our generation is the poet and artist Shel Silverstein. Born at the beginning of the Great Depression to immigrant parents, a young Silverstein took refuge in quiet activities like reading and drawing as a way to keep his busy mind active while keeping occupied and out of his father's way. Silverstein's father was burdened with the pressure of operating his fledgling bakery in uncertain financial times and wasn't fond of the joyful noise that children brought to his house. Another early influence was Silverstein's love of the country and western stations on the radio. Silverstein's incessant drawing aggravated his father, as he felt more time should be focused on school in preparation to take over the family business. Consumed by drawing, Silverstein continued to college but did not excel as a student, even as an art major. Despite his lack of success in school, Silverstein was eventually capable of the financial and artistic freedom sought by many. Although Silverstein is chiefly credited as a children's author, he also scripted and directed plays, composed lyrics and performed songs, drew adult humor cartoons and authored travelogues. Undeniably, Silverstein's restricted childhood prepared him to express himself in the life an artist, traveling freely and unrestrained and exploring many mediums.

Silverstein played with poems using literary devices with the great expertise and inventiveness. At the outset of the Yale National Institute, our seminar leader proposed, "How do we know a piece of writing is a poem?" A flurry of responses followed — listing all the elements of figurative language, rhyming, spacing, syllable patterns, etc. In the elementary school environment, figurative language offers an advanced way of describing the content in their writing. Figurative language is also a fun way of using imagery in writing. For teachers who do not typically teach writing, there are many internet sites to further explain definitions and examples of figurative language. In the vein of making learning fun, the site Educational Raps features 'Rhythm Rhyme Results – Figurative Language' a kid-friendly rap explaining personification, alliteration, assonance, metaphor, simile, hyperbole, and onomatopoeia. An early elementary student might simply write, "The car is red." Students who have developed as writers might use a simile by using "like" or "as" to say, "The car is red like roses." Another way to compare two items but without using "like" or "as" is through metaphor. Silverstein writes a metaphor in "Play Ball" to describe the extreme velocity of the pitcher "Who can throw with blinding speed." ¹⁶

Silverstein employed onomatopoeia in many poems, mimicking the noise one hears. "Eight Balloons" pop and whoosh and float away when they broke loose. ¹⁷ "Picture Puzzle Piece" ¹⁸ demonstrates alliteration beginning with the title, as the first letter or sound of every word is the same. The book, Lafcadio: The Lion Who Shot Back, ¹⁹ is an example of personification, as the main character, a lion, speaks, shoots a gun, becomes famous working in a circus while he stays in a hotel suite, wears a suit and signs autographs. Hyperbole is used to exaggerate the meaning as Silverstein writes in "Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out" the trash had gotten so large that "The garbage reached across the state, From New York to the Golden Gate!" ²⁰

Silverstein followed no one rule when writing his poems. Typically, refrain or repetition in a poem activates the reader's imagination by emphasizing an emotion or a message. The echo of "Here comes summer, here comes summer" ²¹ in the poem "Here Comes," evokes the excitement of all the pleasures summer has to offer until "Whoosh – shiver – there it goes." ²² Rhyming can have the same effect as stimulating a sensation but also provides a rhythm to the poem sometimes creating a song pattern. As you read aloud "Ations," the reader follows the beat, "If we stop and talk awhile, That's a conversation. If we understand each other, That's communication." ²³ Refrain and rhyming offer ways to play with reading and writing poetry.

Runny Babbit ²⁴ is not a typo but a book written in spoonerisms. Named after the Reverend William Archibald Spooner who lived in the late 19 ^th century and into the 20 ^th century, spoonerisms swap the first letter of the word with the word that follows. Reverend Spooner was known to get flustered when he spoke saying, "You have hissed my mystery lecture." ²⁵ Students will enjoy listening to and creating their own spoonerisms.

Concrete or shape poetry is noted to be officially named in 1955 during a meeting between Brazilian poet Decio Pignatari and Swiss and Bolivian-born poet Eugen Gomringer. ²⁶ This type of poem instead of typically having a left justified margin, it is in a correlated shape. Silverstein's "Here I Go Down Circle Road," ²⁷ poem is written in an outline of a circle. "Here I go down circle road strong and hopeful hearted through the dust and wind up just exactly where I started" ²⁸ At the top of the circle is a drawing of a little man facing right. The shape of the poem reinforces the meaning by ending the sentence where the sentence began creating an everlasting loop to "wind up just exactly where I started."

Poetry and art work together because they are so similar. Hollander states, "The building blocks of poetry itself are elements of fiction-fable, 'image', metaphor – all the material of the non-literal." ²⁹ The non-literal aspects of the poem stimulate the reader in the same way art does. In art, the arrangement of the elements of art; color, shape, line, texture, value, form, and space- create the story the viewer puts together without words. In Silverstein's poems, these two 'non-literal' forms combine together. The answer to Silverstein's question posed in "The Runners" ³⁰ is unanswered without the image and the humor of the image is lost without the poem.

    Why does our track team run so fast
    And jump with zest and zeal?
    We owe it all to our great coach
    And our wonderful practice field. 31
  

In my elementary art classroom, the relationship between the poem and picture seems innate. Poet Myra Cohn Livingston states, "we ought to be encouraging children to make their own pictures instead of presenting them with an illustration for every set of words." ³² I believe the students will love the wondrous world of poetry and art through the work of Shel Silverstein and will be motivated to create their own.