Naked Verse

“Poetry [like death?] is the great equalizer.” –Camille A. Allen

There is little more I can see to add to Allen’s chapter except to add my personal experience with poetry and think about how I can use both in my classroom.

I have to admit that I made a start at writing my response in the form of a poem. However, as I share many of the same feelings shared in the opening of our poetry chapter, I couldn’t bring myself to finish it, much less present it. This was due in part to my recently developed cold and in part to the fact that poetry and I have as strained a relationship as any.

I do remember experiencing many of the lessons mentioned in Allen’s chapter, from acrostics, to “I Am” poems and the like. They were for me an entrance into a form with which I would have a long and fractured romance.

As soon as I was introduced, I loved poetry. It was freeing for me. For most of my gradeschool years, I had great difficulties writing. The chore that I could never seem to overcome was the incessant need to neatly organize (word-for-word) all that I was about to write before I set pencil to paper. This was true no matter whether it was a grades essay or a free-writing session. I don’t know what it was exactly, but I do know it took some time and the help of two amazing women to get past my hesitancy in writing.

Poetry, though, seemed easier somehow. I will be honest and say that I don’t know how the timeline works out exactly, I just know that around the time I was receiving help was around the time that I began to write poetry.

What poetry was able to do for me was to give me an outlet to play with words without remorse and, most fantastically, without a wild amount of punctuation (I still haven’t fully grasped all the nuances of punctuation). To condense the story, I eventually began writing poetry constantly, even up through my early college years, sometimes penning as many as one every other day (though, I would have only dared to share perhaps three from the lot).

Then, one long summer day, I was duped. My grandmother and mother, with the greatest intentions, took a short piece of my prose, modified it into a more poetic look and entered it into some national contest. I didn’t know about it until I had won. And, I’ll admit it – I was thrilled. I had put down my pen for some time leading up to that point, for various reasons, but this afforded me new steam. I began writing again with a fervor and confidence I hadn’t felt in years.

But then, as you might have guessed, the contest turned out to be a sham. A hoax. There was no committee that read my work. No real appreciation of what I had done. No, I was being used and, had they tugged me one step further, they might have had me swindled.

So, I stopped. I no longer write poetry. I’ll admit an occasional rhyme in jest, but, for the most part, the serious stuff is over. I don’t know if I will ever start again.

Now, from the autobiographical mess above I do think there is an application to be drawn out. Allen mentioned that poetry is an emotional experience, and I couldn’t agree more. Poetry is a mode of expression that begs for the soul’s dances and dirges. It is intimate. That is why it is freeing and beautiful. That is why it is terrifying.

When I found that my work was being exploited, I felt exploited. I still do, in many ways. How profoundly connected can a writer be to his or her writing?! I think it will be important for us to remember that when we begin to use poetry in our classrooms, we are asking our students to do something that can be frightening, uncomfortable and at the same time be beautiful and liberating. We will need to find a way to honor whatever they write and be ready for some of the big, “hard-to-deal-with” stuff that comes out on their pages. I know that not everyone will enjoy poetry (I’ll be the first to admit that reading it can be a bore). But, there will be a happy few who will see this new writing landscape and pour streams of themselves out into its fields and valleys. That’s when we need to be ready to honor and affirm not only their writing but the person they choose to share.