Richard,
I haven't taught a class in literature since, oh, 1967 or so, and that was for high schoolers.
Since, I've taught fourth graders and adults, all volunteers for what I was offering, so they came with interest.
I would think that on the college level when it's time to teach poetry within the literature unit, you might lure them in with popular song, which they have heard. You might start with some simple stuff, then move to the more complex work of writers such as Paul Simon and Randy Newman. Paul Muldoon might have written something on his use of pop song lyrics. I know he's paid debt to them in his edition of Ploughshares. I've always found The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby" a moving lyric. Bob Dylan might have some good stuff. Maybe go back to Cole Porter, Harry Warren, further to the Wobblies, Woodie Guthrie, Leadbelly, to, who knows, that tune Bunny Berrigan played, "I Can't Get Started With You."
Alan Sullivan was a songwriter. He might have good advice on solid "pop" song lyrics that would work in a situation where students THINK they're unfamiliar with poetry.
Where then? Perhaps stay awhile with the lyric, maybe have them sing some Campion, Herrick, and Burns. Bring them to an understanding of poetry being a "pop" entertainment before TV, before records, before radio, before print.
I should think that you could manage getting into the lyric that way. Narrative, I think, would be easier. Some very popular TV narratives these days are quite compressed and well-written, mostly on HBO: The Sopranos, Oz, Six Feet Under. Have them watch an episode or two, then read some, say, Damon Runyon or Stephen Crane...you know, a couple of wicked weird stories. Then introduce the more compressed form of narrative poetry, another kind of story telling.
I don't know if you'd have time for all of this, but I think that if they're not familiar with poetry, you can quickly persuade them that they may be quite interested in its values expressed in another guise.
Bob
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