This blog will focus on my poetry reflection and one of my all time favorite poems.
My Poetry Reflection
Throughout elementary and middle school I loved poetry. I had a notebook where I would write poetry about soccer games, family, my emotions. I loved putting words together to make something beautiful. I liked learning about all the different kinds of poetry and strategies to help take my poetry to the next level. Then into high school I became obsessed with Langston Hughes. The way he made words flow and evoke emotion I was captivated. My junior english teacher saw that I was interested in poetry and introduced me to slam poetry. After watching one called porkchop I was sold. It was if poetry was taken to a new level. The way they spoke was poetry in itself. I liked how they would speak without ever having to catch a breath and then all the sudden stop and pause. Slam poetry became my new obsession and to this day I love it. The only thing I didn't like about poetry was being tested on it. I remember thinking "How can you be tested on something that is open to interpretation?" I hated how I would read a poem and connect to it and think it meant one thing only to be told by my teacher that my thought process was "all wrong!" I understand asking questions about what figurative language was used what style was the poem written in but I never understood questioning someone's interpretation to it. My senior year it seemed like all we did was answer test prep questions on poetry and because of that my love for poetry faded. During undergrad and mainly grad school my love for poetry has been reignited. These classes have made me excited to teach poetry.
As far as teaching poetry, I have never had the opportunity to teach it. It wasn't stressed in any of the classrooms I have interned in or subbed for. After this class and last semesters class I am very excited to teach poetry. I think it is a creative outlet for students who aren't interested in writing narratives or longer papers. It allows for practice in using figurative language and can be written in so many different forms. I am excited to use what I have learned in grad school to help teach poetry.
My criteria for how I know I have read a really good poem is if it makes me stop and think after I have read it. Something else is if it made me express or feel an emotion while reading it that afterward I am left in awe. One poem that has left feeling this way every time I read it is Theme for English B by Langston Hughes.
The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you— Then, it will be true. I wonder if it’s that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here to this college on the hill above Harlem. I am the only colored student in my class. The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem, through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas, Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y, the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator up to my room, sit down, and write this page: It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you. hear you, hear me—we two—you, me, talk on this page. (I hear New York, too.) Me—who? Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love. I like to work, read, learn, and understand life. I like a pipe for a Christmas present, or records—Bessie, bop, or Bach. I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like the same things other folks like who are other races. So will my page be colored that I write? Being me, it will not be white. But it will be a part of you, instructor. You are white— yet a part of me, as I am a part of you. That’s American. Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me. Nor do I often want to be a part of you. But we are, that’s true! As I learn from you, I guess you learn from me— although you’re older—and white— and somewhat more free. This is my page for English B.
This poem really resonates with me as a teacher and as a twenty two year old. It always leaves me thinking deeply about my perspective on race.
I want to have poetry Fridays where we spend our writing time writing poetry either with a mini lesson introducing a new topic or just allowing the students to simply free write. I want to have a huge tree in the writing corner of my room that is called the poeTREE that will invite the students to have a fun and comfortable spot to write and share.
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