Making the Case for Poetry (and for Pillows, Lampposts, and Subways Seats that Speak)
By Sarah Callender | February 13, 2019 |
This fall, I started a job teaching 7th grade English. It began as a part-time job, just .5. Then, three weeks ago, the other 7th grade English teacher resigned, and since then, I find myself teaching his classes as well as mine … meaning that I am 1.2 time. Meaning that now I really have zero time to write.
But while I miss writing terribly, I love my students so much, partly because seventh graders are so easily grossed out. For example, if I want them to move their desks together into little pods, I say, “Please make your desks kiss!” They find that so gross. Which makes me laugh. Which means I laugh a lot more than I ever did as a .5 teacher. I love laughing while working.
What does not make me laugh at work? What does not bring me joy? Teaching poetry.
Reading poetry fills me with dread. Talking about poetry multiples the dread. Presenting my students with poems that I don’t understand? That’s dread to the power of infinity.
So, three weeks ago, on the first day of the Poetry unit, I decided to be honest with my students.
“I have a confession,” I said.
The kids grew instantly silent and perfectly still.
“Please don’t tell anyone,” I continued, “because English teachers can get fired for something like this. But here’s the truth: I don’t love poetry.” I cringed. “Some poems, in fact, I find really, really … boring.”
A few kids nodded.
“So I promise,” I continued, “we will only study poems that, at least in my opinion, aren’t boring.” I held up three, glued-together fingers as if making a teacher oath (which may have in fact been the Girl Scout Promise). “We will only study poems that change the way we see the world.”
I wasn’t sure where this past part came from. Did poems change the world? And if so, how? And why? And where were these particular poems?
To be clear, there were a few poems I did like. Ones by Wislawa Szymborska, Billy Collins, and William Carlos Williams. Adrienne Su, Adrian Matejka, Nikki Giovanni. But I didn’t care for the canon of poetry, the ones I read when I was in school, the ones I taught in previous teaching jobs. Those poems never ignited me. Poetry was a chore. Poems were so darn serious! Plus, I could never remember the differences between trochaic, pyrrhic, and spondee feet.
But then I learned about talking subway seats.
My sister, Libby, is a farmer. Libby is also a poet, a musician, and an artist. In other words she creates literal and figurative fuel for people’s bellies and brains. When Libby and I were together recently, she mentioned a podcast called “Everything is Alive,” a series of interviews where Ian Chillag (a human), interviews a variety of not-humans: Sean, subway seat. Maeve, lamppost. Dennis, pillow.
In these interviews, all unscripted, the inanimate comes to life. Sean, the subway seat, explains that he can tell quite a lot about people when they are sitting on him. “The butt,” he explains, “is my window to the soul.”
Dennis, a down pillow, shares that when his person has insomnia, he feels responsible. Dennis also reminds listeners that “you don’t have to be foam to have memories.”
And Maeve, lamppost, discloses her desire to be as famous as the lamppost around which Gene Kelly danced in Singing in the Rain.
These interviews are eye-opening. They have given me empathy for things–literal things–I didn’t have. I see the world differently.
The interview snippets also got me thinking about personification, which got me thinking about poetry and the poets who employ personification in their poems, so in class, I shared a few snippets from the “Everything is Alive” interviews, hoping my students would be equally impacted.
I was delighted when one boy said, “I would have thought a subway seat would not want someone sitting on him.” He paused. “Now I see he does. When people sit on him, it means he’s doing his job well.”
After that, we read and discussed personification poems by Plath and Dickinson, and we learned that Death was maybe more kindly than we had previously assumed, that a Mirror was not mean, just truthful, that the Sun was in fact a floor-sweeping woman. Just as the “Everything is Alive” interviews made Maeve, lamppost come alive, Plath and Dickinson made inanimate and intangible things human, even sympathetic.
My students and I proceeded, reading other not-boring-to-me poems, one poem describing a woman as a wet, paper bag. In another, a single, solitary sneaker becomes a symbol for the children lost in wartime. In still another, immigrants are monarch butterflies. In these poems, poets were imbuing “things” with meaning that surprised, delighted, and discomforted us.
And I started to understand something about the power of poems, about the power of seeing–really seeing–things.
We humans are too good as seeing other people as “things.” And we forget, when we view people as things–Democrats, Immigrants, Republicans, Mexicans, Whites, African Americans, Police Officers, Bleeding-Heart Liberals, Right-wingers, 1%-ers, the Poor, the Rich, the Homeless, the Mentally Ill–we ignore people’s humanity.
What if poets used words to expand the worlds of the reader, to reveal quiet moments of humanity in places we forgot to look or notice? What if I had spent the first 47 years of my life not appreciating poetry because I never understood that poems are not meant for the dissection, analyzation, and parsing, at least not to the point that carefully crafted clusters of words became a carcass? What if poems helped humans be more humane?
I do know that we fiction writers, like poets, write to understand, explore, wander around in the shoes of another. And the byproduct of our stories? World expansion. Empathy-building. And this question: Are people who seem so different actually all that different?
I see that poems have a similar result.
In fact, the poems and stories we write are a vehicle—perhaps a subway!—where a reader finds herself sitting beside one of the 5.225 million daily riders. But her seat mate is a Stranger, an Other, someone who seems more Thing than Human.
Still, sitting together on subway seats, maybe she and this Other engage in some small-talk. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s just that she can hear this Other’s music coming faintly through the Other’s earbuds. And maybe she finds the Other’s music interesting.
Or, maybe she notices this Other is anxiously sending texts to a boss, a teenage son, an aging mother. And this makes her wonder about the factors and details of the Other’s life.
Or, maybe she is only aware that she and this Other are breathing in unison, sharing the same air as they speed through a tunnel 180 feet under streets and sidewalks.
Maybe that’s enough: understanding that we all share the same air. And as she gets off the subway, or as this Other disembarks, perhaps she will see this Other as a person rather than a thing with a tidy label.
Our stories do that. Poetry does too.
Next year, when I teach this poetry unit, I won’t tell my students that I don’t really like poetry. That would be a lie. When however, I tell them that poetry will change the way they see the world AND the way they see others, I’ll be able to back that up with hard, solid evidence.
Your turn! Do you have poems you love that you’d like to share? Especially ones that might help us unite our unnecessarily divided world? Do you use poetry in any phase of your writing process? Thank you for reading and sharing, as always!
Subway Seat photo (maybe it’s Sean!) compliments of Flickr’s Alex Liivet.
A Middle Grade novelist (and Middle School English teacher), Sarah Callender lives in Seattle with her family. Because Sarah dislikes cleaning anything that will just get messy again, she tidies the house and weeds the yard only when absolutely necessary. This allows her time to focus on her true–and somewhat fraught–passions: writing, Abe Lincoln, and Tony’s Chocolonely chocolate bars. Equally passionate about mental health advocacy, Sarah is a member of The Stability Network. Sarah’s first novel, LUCY IN BETWEEN, will be published by Margaret Ferguson Books/Holiday House in 2026.
Sarah, you are a fantastic teacher. I’d quake with fear if I had to teach poetry. I shake the cobwebs out of my head by writing poems (terrible ones, I might add)–but I find it a useful exercise to just play with words. I love children’s poetry because it’s so concrete and FUN.
I love singing and when I look at a piece of music, I’m also looking at the words and…my heart! I love all the old hymns from the 1940 hymnal and a lot of the stuff we chant is ancient, like from the 400s or 1200s. Aquinas was a great poet. Look at his Tantum Ergo or Lauda Sion–theology in rhyme.
You should get your kids to participate in Poetry on Buses! Are they still doing it in King county? Years ago, this poem of mine was on 65 buses. The only children’s poem selected. True story: https://metro.kingcounty.gov/prog/poetry/2007/poem-52.html
Fun poem, Vijaya!
Thanks Tom! I’d never seen a red-head before and was smitten.
Dear Vijaya,
You are the coolest! I love that I might have seen your poem before I ever knew you.
And thank you for these beautiful words. Reading them, especially about the ancient hymns, I felt wrapped in a heavy, warm, hooded robe, watching candles flickering and listening to the voices of an a capella choir echoing off cold stone walls.
Thank you. Next time I need to get my own cobwebs out, I’m going to by like you and try writing something poemish.
Happy day to you!
I wish I could be there for your class! I have always loved poetry for the emotional impact contained in just a couple of pages (at the most) of words. I’ve always been jealous, too, of poets who can describe a whole world in a sentence and, like you said, connect humanity in what may amount to a paragraph. Poetry, indeed, can be life changing. And this post is amazing!
Dear Lara,
Thank you for taking the time to share here today. And yes, I too am jealous of those who can sum up the world in just a few words.
We with writer minds are an interesting bunch. I feel like I notice EVERYTHING. I wonder if poets doing even more noticing than fiction writers? It’s very time consuming to have to pay attention to everything. Maybe it’s ten times worse (or ten times cooler) for poets? Probably cooler.
Happy writing to you, Lara. And thank you for your encouraging words!
“What is the poet trying to say?”
Every teacher who asks that question should be fined $1000 or given 30 lashes on the bare back.
Lovely essay, Sarah. Your students are lucky.
Thank you, Anna! I totally agree … there’s really no better way to squash a poem’s appeal. We should see about issuing tickets, or at least citations, to naughty teachers who kill poetry. You and I, we could start up the Poetry Police! No guns or tasers. Just sonnets, limericks, and haiku.
:)
I’m with Anna. Your students are lucky. And YOU, Sarah, are helping them to see things differently. Don’t be surprised if some day in the future, one of these student shows up to tell you that because of you he’s more empathetic and human open to the wonders all around him. I have a love/hate relationship with poetry. I’ve written it to stay sane, but I’ve also cringed at the seriousness of some poetry. Sylvia Plath was my dark heroine for a while, and then I discovered Rilke. Ha! And I love WB Yeats and Shelley. Mary Oliver, Edna St. Vincent Millay…some of whom only wrote one poem that spun me on my axis,. But one has been enough. Be sure, you are making the world a better place
Oh Susan. Thank you. And I did mean to mention dear Mary Oliver. She has been a game changer for me.
I love what you said, too, about sometimes it only takes one poem to make us fall in love with the poet. That’s so true. I love particular poems, but I am not a fan of any one particular poet. I guess it’s the same with fiction. I have loads of favorite books, but it’s always difficult for me to come up with my most favorite author.
Thanks for bringing this point up. It makes me feel better to know I might not be the only one without a most favorite poet/author EVER.
I hope you have a fabulous, love-filled week, Susan. Thanks again.
Oh Sarah as usual I love this post—your creative way with your students warms my heart and makes me long for the classroom. Creativity springs from youth. It’s amazing what my students often came up with. This post is a keeper for stimulating creative thought. As for poets Billy Collins is a favorite. One year my brothers and I read a collection and then emailed our favorites as we all lived in different states. Mary Oliver was another favorite—her relationship with nature made me happy to be alive. Happy Teaching.
Thank you, Beth. So kind.
And thanks for mentioning your fondness for Billy Collins. I know that true poetry fans probably think he’s a lightweight, but I think he’s just so funny and fun. I heard him speak a few years back–I made my husband and kids to go with me, and we all still giggle about “The Lanyard,” (both the poem itself and Collins’ dry performance). I love that one.
https://poetry-fromthehart.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-lanyard-billy-collins.html
Happy writing and teaching, Beth!
:)
Funny you mention the Lanyard — a favorite, sad and sweet.
Sarah,
I think you and your piece on poetry did for me what Sean’s interview did for you.
I’m not a lover of poetry either, but I’ve always thought that the poetry that did speak to me cut through the conventions of thought and language, stripped away the clutter and the grammar so we could experience the beauty or essence of things. It engages the senses and the feeling part of us more directly.
And like the interview with a subway seat, those poems opened windows I didn’t know were there to let in welcome light and air.
Thank you.
Wow, Bob. Thank your for taking the time to share such a beautiful and perfectly-arranged group of words. You made poetry here today! Thank you. That’s all I want to say: thank you.
Thank you for this piece. You changed the way I see poetry and you shifted my focus to appreciate the “humanity” of inanimate objects.
Thank you, Gail! I have really been changed by the podcast … I suspect anyone with a writer brain would get a kick out of the interviews.
Happy writing to you!
:)
Sarah, a spondee’s feet have nothing on a subway rider’s (or writer’s) butt. I love the loamy exchange between you and the students for its slyness and honesty. I don’t read enough poetry, but dip in now and then, and always read it in literary journals I get.
Billy Collins and William Carlos Williams, yes, as well as Lorca, Rilke, Whitman, Mary Oliver (RIP), and all those unsung poets where I’ve brightened at their verse and forgotten their names afterward.
To the named and nameless poets, and to the music of Others. And as Lara said, I’d love to be in one of your classes too.
This is so beautiful, Tom. Thank you. Loamy. I’m going to start using that word on a daily basis. It really sounds like what it is, no? #onomatopoeia
I hope you are well. You’re clearly still wonderfully funny and eloquent!
:)
I love how you approach teaching poetry with your students. Brilliant. I had a teacher, who like you, transformed my feelings about poetry. I was a student of the late Don Summerhayes at York University in a poetry course that I had been funneled into when my first choice of course was full. I wasn’t too happy because I did NOT like poetry. English was my best subject but I had been told in high school that my interpretations of poems were “wrong.”
Don, with his unconventional approach to teaching about poetry, completely changed that and thanks to him, I began a lifelong love of poetry and actually became a poet myself. He had us take the poems we were studying and experiment with them, rewrite them even. For instance – take a poem written from the point of view of a man ogling a woman – now rewrite it from her perspective. Or, here’s a poem – remove all the adjectives and replace them with different ones. Now how does it read? When the assignment was “relate two poems” he allowed me to physically weave two poems together, to make a mobile with words from the two poems that spun (both were about fish, so the woven poems and the mobile had fish shapes). I also combined two poems and illustrated them with ink drawings to create a new poem. His approach to poetry allowed us to choose those that resonated with us, play with them, engage with them and create something out of that connection. I became a poet, thanks to him – and writing poems (and reading them) has been a lifeline during life’s toughest experiences.
Thanks so much for sharing this. You are making a difference!
Laura, the teacher who told you your interpretation of poetry was “wrong” was terribly wrong and should never have presumed to teach poetry. A better teacher would have said of your interpretation, “Oh, that’s interesting; tell me more.”
I had a teacher who hated Whitman and satirized the very poem (Out of the cradle endlessly rocking) that had brought poetry alive for me only the previous evening during the homework assignment. His scorn did nothing to destroy my happiness with the poem, because I had learned in reading it that I could trust my own perceptions. As it has turned out, my own poems have a better track record for publication—in respectable juried venues—than any of my other writings. (Still aspiring to get my fictions out, though, which is why I hang out here.)
The prompts suggested by your teacher at York are wonderful. More inspiration for poems!
Oh my gosh, Laura! Maybe I steal these ideas? I love them … because at the heart of poetry is wordplay, right? And when I use the word “play,” I don’t mean that writing poetry is easy or fluffy. In fact, play is an essential part of who we are and how we get along in the world. Of course you know this–you are a poet!
I love that you were disappointed to land in this not-your-first-choice class … and now look at you! Before Don passed, were you able to share with him how he had changed you?
This is such a great story. Thank you, Laura.
I really need to take your class — I am not well versed! pun intended! But I did recently read Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem and wanted to know where the title came from. Yeats! And in this terrible Trump era it has be revived!
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
When I was a teen, my mom was in my bedroom and found a paper I’d had written in long hand that began… “Hello darkness my old friend…” haha she flipped thinking I’d written this poem. I can only wish…
Luna, this was such a fantastic comment. Thank you! I LOVE Simon and Garfunkel. They were with me through my bumpy teenage years, and they still fill me with joy (and give me ample opportunity to harmonize). I loved your mom’s faith in you. :)
Thank you also for sharing this beautiful poem. I think all candidates for POTUS should have to answer this interview question: “Do you love of poetry and/or fiction, and if so, please prove it.” In my mind, if a candidate doesn’t read, then he’s not up for the job. After all, fiction (and poetry) generate empathy.
And I will now get off my political soapbox.
Thank you for this, Luna!
Ugh.
Lovely piece of work. Wish I had had your poetry class when I was in 7th grade.
LOVE this post! Reading your writing makes my heart sing. You ask how we use poems in our writing process. I have my internet app set so that it opens to a new poem each day: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem-day. This way any research I do starts in a thoughtful space. Even if the particular poem doesn’t speak to me, I like starting there.