Tomorrow night I'll be one of the judges in the finals of Centennial High School's Poetry Out Loud competition. Sarah E. Barry, who along with her fellow English teacher, Lynn Taylor, coordinates the program at Centennial, has asked me participate. The Poetry Out Loud program was piloted in 2005 and since then millions of students from across the country have participated. Over the years thousands of poems have been learned, memorized, and taken to heart. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarship money has been awarded to deserving students. The Poetry Out Loud Program is a big deal. I'm honored to have been asked.
Centennial is ranked one of the best high schools in the Columbus City School system, and Ms. Barry and Ms. Taylor, both of whom are National Board Certified teachers, a very difficult-to-earn certification awarded to the nation's best K-12 teachers, are two of the reasons why. It is primarily through their efforts that Centennial has entered into this national recitation contest sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. They've been doing this for three years now, and more than one of their students have advanced the finals in the state competition, whose winners advance to the National Finals in the spring, where $50,000 in awards and school stipends will be awarded.
So a lot is at stake, and Ms. Barry and Ms. Taylor have been working hard with the twenty-six students who will be participating in tomorrow night's competition, helping these winners in the classroom competitions to select and understand the two poems they'll be reciting in the school-wide competition, working with them as they memorize their "lines," pushing them, inspiriting them.
As judge, I have to evaluate each student for her "Physical Presence," her "Voice and Articulation," her "Dramatic Appropriateness," her "Evidence of Understanding," her poem's "Level of Complexity,"and her "Overall Performance." They'll be around five of us judges, and I'll be sitting next to my good friend and fellow writer and teacher of poetry at The Ohio State University, Mike Lohre. It will be a fast-paced night, and the energy in the school auditorium where the competition is held will be electric.
The students will be all dressed up, excited and nervous, and they'll come up onstage, one by one, stand alone at the microphone, and perform their first poem choice to the audience spread out below them. From that first round, five students will be selected to move on to the second round. Now the judging really gets tough. Only one can more on to the next level. The students will be reciting everything from contemporary favorites like Maya Angelou's "Caged Bird" or Philip Levine's much anthologized poem, "They Feed They Lion," as well as poems by other contemporary poets such as Joy Harjo, W.D. Ehrhart, Amiri Baraka, Gregory Pardlo, Eaven Boland, Mark Strand, and Ai, to poems by more canonized poets like Walt Whitman, Christina Rossetti, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Thomas Hardy, Countee Cullen, Robert Frost, Anne Bradstreet, Wilfred Owen, and Emily Bronte.
As you might imagine, the pedagogical fruits from gaining such intimacy with great poems are many, and in the auditorium the sweet words will soar. It will be a great night, a memorable evening. I can't wait.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
November 26, 2013
Winter is coming.
Today, two days before Thanksgiving, winter storms have rummaged through the heartland and are moving east. Thanksgiving plans will be thrown into a tizzy for much of the country as snow and icy rain delays plane and car travel. Where I live in Ohio, between two-four inches of snow is predicted tonight. The last few nights the temperatures have fallen into the teens. So even though it’s still officially autumn, it seems a good to ponder writing and winter, which leads me to this week’s blog post, and an assignment that I concocted for my poetry-writing students during the cold days of January 2012.
It’s
an assignment that takes students out of their comfort zones, literally. It
makes them go outside in the winter, hang out alone, and listen, and write. It’s
called “’For the Listener, who listens…’ Listening to Winter.”
The
title of this writing assignment comes from that famous poem by Wallace
Stevens, “The Snow Man,” and the preparation for the assignment involves the
students gathering around in a group outside, bundled up against
cold, and listening to Steven's poem. The preparation also includes listening to
poems about winter by Robert Frost and Tomas Transtromer, as well as an lovely
excerpt from a little prose piece by Jane Hirschfield about listening, in which
she focuses on that famous passage in Song
of Myself, section 26, in which Whitman declares that he will do “nothing
but listen.” And then the students listen to that section of the poem, as well
as a wonderful poem by Mark Svenvold about listening to the racket of sound coming
from a ceiba tree in a forest in the Yucatan. ‘’
And
then the students are sent out to find a special place, what for each of them might be, or become, a sacred space, or at least a place that might be inclined to lean toward that status. At Ohio State where I teach, we
spread out among the acreage on our campus’ restored prairie. It gives us
plenty of space to spread out and be alone, to listen, and then to write.
I’ll
show you the assignment in a moment, but first, here’s one of the poems that
arose from it when I first taught this assignment. It’s by a
very talented young poet named Tim Giles:
uninhabited wind
The planet breathes.
Inhales, then gone.
It breathes.
Inhales, then gone.
It breathes.
There is nothing
but the hum of it.
Within vacant terrain.
but the hum of it.
Within vacant terrain.
The deep breath
passes through leaves
of bare trees.
Impossible to fathom
a single image
of the phantom.
passes through leaves
of bare trees.
Impossible to fathom
a single image
of the phantom.
Stop the breath
to let
the sunset be serene.
by Tim Gilesto let
the sunset be serene.
I
especially love the first three stanzas of Tim’s poem. I can almost feel the
silence pressing in as the wind rustles through the barren branches of the oaks
and the sycamores that stand near the creek that edges the prairie, the stems of asters and goldenrod in the prairie itself, the curled-up fists of
Queen Anne’s Lace blossoms, and the lonely rattle of crinkly burdock leaves. I told Tim that his poem is
like a Tomas Transtromer poem meeting Wallace Steven’s snow man. It's an impressive poem, I think.
Here’s the assignment that inspired Tim’s poem. Whether you’re a teacher, a
writer, or both, feels free to riff on this assignment in any way you like in
order to make it more useful to you.
Thanks
for listening.
S.D.
Lishan
“For the
listener, who listens…” Listening to Winter
Quotes of
Context and, Hopefully, Inspiration
The Snow Man
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the Pine-trees crusted with snow;
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the Pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the
snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
By Wallace Stevens
Midwinter
A
blue light
radiates from my clothing.
Midwinter.
Clattering tambourines of ice.
I close my eyes.
There is a silent world
there is a crack
where the dead
are smuggled across the border.
radiates from my clothing.
Midwinter.
Clattering tambourines of ice.
I close my eyes.
There is a silent world
there is a crack
where the dead
are smuggled across the border.
By Tomas Transtromer, Translated
by Michael McGriff and Mikaela Grassl
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
by Robert FrostHis house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
By Jane Hirshfield
Whitman is a poet of all the senses, but listening, it seems, engaged him with special force: many of his work's best-known passages set down what had come to him through the ear. No gesture of style so pronounced can be accidental, and I would guess that the turn toward hearing was a necessary counterweight to Whitman's extroversion. To listen means to be quiet oneself. It is an action demanding inaction, requiring reception. For a person whose genius was kinetic, whose artistic ambition was virtually all-consuming, to listen was to renounce the bounding realms of ego. The ears hear what comes from outside the self. We cannot choose to open or close them, and the sounds of the earth come to us, entering our bodies and touching the ears’ attuned bones and hairs. Whitman’s listening, then, is a kind of synecdoche for his passion: through it he invites inside himself all of existence…..
I Hear America Singing” holds one example of Whitman’s listening. Equally powerful is section 26 of “Song of Myself.” The halfway mark in that work’s liturgical year, it begins, “Now I will do nothing but listen.” Recorded in the lines that follow are the “bravura of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of flames,” the sounds of stevedores’ labor and laughter, of a judge gravely, reluctantly, pronouncing a sentence of death. The passage moves from the sounds of the natural and industrial worlds to those of violoncello, tenor, and a soprano whose voice “wrenches such ardors from me I did not know I possessed them.” Whitman asks no less ardor of us. His omnivorous, compassionate insistence that we live as his companion “cameradoes” in the fullest pitch and range of existence—that is the irresistible music of Whitman, for me, the song of all of ourselves.
Section 26 of Song of Myself,
Now I will do nothing but listen,
To accrue what I hear into this song, to let sounds contribute toward it.
I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat,
gossip of flames,
clack of sticks cooking my meals,
I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice,
I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following,
Sounds of the city and sounds out of the city, sounds of the day and night,
Talkative young ones to those that like them, the loud laugh of
work-people at their meals,
The angry base of disjointed friendship, the faint tones of the sick,
The judge with hands tight to the desk, his pallid lips pronouncing
a death-sentence,
The heave'e'yo of stevedores unlading ships by the wharves, the
refrain of the anchor-lifters,
The ring of alarm-bells, the cry of fire, the whirr of swift-streaking
engines and hose-carts with premonitory tinkles and color'd lights,
The steam-whistle, the solid roll of the train of approaching cars,
The slow march play'd at the head of the association marching two and two,
(They go to guard some corpse, the flag-tops are draped with black muslin.)
clack of sticks cooking my meals,
I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice,
I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following,
Sounds of the city and sounds out of the city, sounds of the day and night,
Talkative young ones to those that like them, the loud laugh of
work-people at their meals,
The angry base of disjointed friendship, the faint tones of the sick,
The judge with hands tight to the desk, his pallid lips pronouncing
a death-sentence,
The heave'e'yo of stevedores unlading ships by the wharves, the
refrain of the anchor-lifters,
The ring of alarm-bells, the cry of fire, the whirr of swift-streaking
engines and hose-carts with premonitory tinkles and color'd lights,
The steam-whistle, the solid roll of the train of approaching cars,
The slow march play'd at the head of the association marching two and two,
(They go to guard some corpse, the flag-tops are draped with black muslin.)
I hear the violoncello, ('tis the young man's
heart's complaint,)
I hear the key'd cornet, it glides quickly in through my ears,
It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly and breast.
I hear the key'd cornet, it glides quickly in through my ears,
It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly and breast.
I hear the chorus, it is a grand opera,
Ah this indeed is music--this suits me.
Ah this indeed is music--this suits me.
A tenor large and fresh as the creation fills me,
The orbic flex of his mouth is pouring and filling me full.
The orbic flex of his mouth is pouring and filling me full.
I hear the train'd soprano (what work with hers is
this?)
The orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies,
It wrenches such ardors from me I did not know I possess'd them,
It sails me, I dab with bare feet, they are lick'd by the indolent waves,
I am cut by bitter and angry hail, I lose my breath,
Steep'd amid honey'd morphine, my windpipe throttled in fakes of death,
At length let up again to feel the puzzle of puzzles,
And that we call Being.
By
Walt WhitmanThe orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies,
It wrenches such ardors from me I did not know I possess'd them,
It sails me, I dab with bare feet, they are lick'd by the indolent waves,
I am cut by bitter and angry hail, I lose my breath,
Steep'd amid honey'd morphine, my windpipe throttled in fakes of death,
At length let up again to feel the puzzle of puzzles,
And that we call Being.
Ceiba
Tree, Petac, Mexico
Sunlight falls like cash through the canopy,
One wants to say “filters down,” but really it’s a cascade
of plenty, a rich comedy in which each leaf’s increase
is summoned and rewarded. Q: Can a leaf be as big
as a bus? A: Yes, it can, in theYucatan.
The grackle struts through its portico. Above and all around
the whistle and hoot, the high glissando, the bell and echo,
the flatted fifth, the celestial chitter, the honk, the joke note
on a whoopee cushion, the clarion rising above the clatter,
the squelch and squirch and screech of a manic communique
keeps slipping, like background noise, into the broad cloth
of a morning above us and in us, like some momentary shaft,
of sunlight on the floating seed of a ceiba tree,
that hangs like this and like that in the shadows and subaltern greens.
Meanwhile, the doves, who hoard all vowels,
pass it to one another among the trees: the sky, the sun,
and the great limestone rivers of the dead, are one.
-- Mark Svenvold
One wants to say “filters down,” but really it’s a cascade
of plenty, a rich comedy in which each leaf’s increase
is summoned and rewarded. Q: Can a leaf be as big
as a bus? A: Yes, it can, in theYucatan.
The grackle struts through its portico. Above and all around
the whistle and hoot, the high glissando, the bell and echo,
the flatted fifth, the celestial chitter, the honk, the joke note
on a whoopee cushion, the clarion rising above the clatter,
the squelch and squirch and screech of a manic communique
keeps slipping, like background noise, into the broad cloth
of a morning above us and in us, like some momentary shaft,
of sunlight on the floating seed of a ceiba tree,
that hangs like this and like that in the shadows and subaltern greens.
Meanwhile, the doves, who hoard all vowels,
pass it to one another among the trees: the sky, the sun,
and the great limestone rivers of the dead, are one.
-- Mark Svenvold
The purpose of this exercise is to help us pay attention, to focus on our attentiveness, to use another sense other than sight, to learn to rely on our journals, and to find some pearls among those icicles out there. J
- We’re
going to go outside, with our journals and something to write with.
- We’re
going to spread out.
- We’re
going to quiet ourselves.
- Like
Tomas Transtromer, we’re going to close our eyes.
- We’re
going to listen.
- Write
down what you hear.
- Possible
beginnings:
i.
I hear…
ii.
I close my eyes…
iii.
Or, like some of
the examples above, you may want to start out by looking first and describe
what you see (“Sunlight falls like cash through the canopy,” “A blue light/
radiates from my clothing”). Don’t be afraid to use figurative language (those
things like metaphors and similes).
- I’ll
remind you again. Be specific. Don’t say something uselessly general like,
“I hear the glories of winter,” or something similarly gloppy. Get down,
dirty, and dangerous in your listening.
- At
some point – you’ll know when – open your eyes and look with the same
attention you brought to your listening. Feel free to touch, too. As
Elizabeth Bishop says, “Write it!”
- These will be rough lines, for, as Diane Thiel says in our Open Roads book, “journal entries are far from final pieces” (7). But it will be a start. When we’re done, we’ll come back to class, rearrange, perhaps cut, perhaps change, and go from there, hopefully warmer in the knowledge that we’ve written some terrific lines.
Works Cited
Frost, Robert. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Poetry Foundation.
n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2013.
Giles, Tim. “uninhabited wind.” Message to Stuart Lishan. 25 Nov. 2013. E-mail
n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2013.
Giles, Tim. “uninhabited wind.” Message to Stuart Lishan. 25 Nov. 2013. E-mail
Hirschfield, Jane. “Section 26 of ‘Song of Myself’ and Whitman’s Listening.”
The Virginia Quarterly Review Spring 2005: 48-49. Print.
The Virginia Quarterly Review Spring 2005: 48-49. Print.
Stevens, Wallace. “The Snow Man. The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976. 9-10. Print.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976. 9-10. Print.
Svenvold, Mark. “Ceiba Tree, Petac, Mexico.” The New Yorker. 14 Nov. 2011,
34. Print.
34. Print.
Thiel, Diane. Open Roads (Exercises in Writing Poetry). New York: Longman,
2004. Print.
2004. Print.
Transtromer, Tomas, “Midwinter.” The Sorrow Gondola. Trans. Michael McGriff
& Mikaela Grassl. Los Angeles: Green Integer, 2010. 69. Print.
& Mikaela Grassl. Los Angeles: Green Integer, 2010. 69. Print.
Whitman, Walt. “Song of Myself, Section 26.” Walt Whitman (Complete Poetry
and Collected Prose. New York: The Library of America. 214-215. Print.
and Collected Prose. New York: The Library of America. 214-215. Print.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)