[Chris Childers]

So in the fall I'm about to start teaching high school juniors and maybe a senior or two creative writing, and I have been well advised by Dave Mason, that if I want the kids to enjoy the class a bit, a good thing to do might be to recite a funny poem occasionally. Unfortunately, at this point off the top of my head I could come up with a great many more lines of Milton or Vergil than Ogden Nash or Wendy Cope or Buggsy or any of our other illustrious comic poets. So I'm looking in primis for suggestions of anthologies of humorous poetry or the like from which I could increase my mental repertoire of things high school kids & maybe even older people too would laugh at.

Secondarily, any and all discussion on the part of the sensitive and creative group of teachers which inhabits the Sphere about the art of teaching kids poetry writing or meter or whatever would be most appreciated. I know I've seen some old threads on the subject, which I could probably dredge up with great effort on my own, but any pointers to old discussions or generation of new would be received with gratitude. My main question is this: what do I want these kids to take away from me and from the course? Assuming I have no budding Keatses or Rimbauds, what should I want to teach the angsty teen addicted to self-expression, the grungy bookish future english major, the young engineer who'll never read another poem again, and how should I go about doing it? I know it's a broad question, but I'm really interested in whatever anyone might have to say, since it will all go into the primordial course-planning soup now brewing in my head. All responses will be most welcome. Thanks,

Chris

[Michael Cantor]

Based on my vast experience (one evening a year as guest reader/speaker at the local high school Poetry Club) you will discover - and I'm sure you will be told by others - that rap is a great portal to teaching meter and formal poetry to kids. It's iambic, it has rhymes and rhythm, etc., etc. And it is. But be careful. Most of these kids - certainly the better ones - already know that, and they'd be happy to turn the class into a competition to see which affluent white boy can say ho' and bitch most rapidly and frequently in a twelve line poem. You've got to get them beyond that.

Possibly because I like to use certain forms as finger exercises myself, I found that some of the kids seemed to react to the short, structured forms that you could throw at them almost as puzzles, as intellectual exercises. Triolet. Haiku. Tanka. I never tried the cinquain (which I once crapped on here as a form, but praised as a tool for beginners), but I bet that works also. The trick is to find a form which is short and simple, has a meter or a "rule", and works because the poem turns at the end - you have a "ta-da" moment. It's simplistic, but it's fun, and it gets kids thinking about what a poem does, about how to be creative in a workable space. (Then, fifteen years later, you can find them on Sphere, and beat the shit out of them if their poetry hasn't gone beyond da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM ta-da.)



[This message has been edited by Michael Cantor (edited July 30, 2006).]

[Julie Steiner]

My main question is this: what do I want these kids to take away from me

I'd say limit them to your self-respect and a few personal items.

Happy to help,

Julie Stoner

[Daniel Pereira]

Hey Chris,

I taught creative writing to high school juniors last year. My class was mixed in terms of skill and interest, as I gather yours will be.

Michael's advice on using simple, short forms is excellent: my students had more fun writing fibs than I think anything else. Go figure.

So much depends upon how much time you have. I had five 50-minute classes a week for eighteen weeks. With that much time, I found it possible to get some reasonably proficient scansion. Getting them to write in verse was a lot trickier because once they knew a little of the theory, they started to overthink everything. If I had to do it again, I'd do it by getting them to write in an easy meter -- say ballad meter or something anapestic -- by imitating examples ("The Night Before Christmas" or some such), and then hitting them with the iambs and the dactyls after they'd *felt* it.

But having just finished teaching all that, I'm going to blaspheme and say that it doesn't matter if they know trochees from triolets. The part of the class that the students really responded to, and that I found the most exciting, was creating a community of writers: they set up their own poetry forum, made a literary magazine (open to all writers), held a poetry reading, attended poetry readings, officiated a poetry slam, wrote birthday poems for each other and so forth. On Valentine's Day I had them set up a booth on the street and write free love poems for anyone who wanted them -- provide a little information about the beloved and voila. Poetry often suffers from being seen as an ivory-tower pursuit -- getting them out in the world to see that they could provide a useful and accepted service as poets was, I think, a lot more eye-opening than all of our sometimes agonizing analyses and exercises.

Sorry to be so long winded: but that's what I'd encourage you to consider -- helping them create a writing-supportive community.

-Dan

[Julie Steiner]

Okay, seriously, any subject is riveting if the teacher is passionate about it.

Present your own favorite poems, and rant on about why they make your heart go pitter-pat. The kids probably saw that endlessly-replayed footage of Tom Cruise jumping the couch, and weren't able to look away. Do the same thing when talking about the poems you love, and they won't be able to look away. (See self-respect, in post above.)

Then ask one kid a day to bring in his or her own favorite poems or song lyrics, and explain why those make their hearts go pitter-pat. Get them thinking about those familiar words in a new way.

(I remember objecting to the raunchy lyrics of some of my friends' favorite songs in high school, and invariably my friends would say something like, "Oh, I never think about what the words mean--I just like the way they sound." Even in such cases, there's hope. Maybe there's an alliterative line that they can't get out of their heads. Maybe if they stop and think, they'll notice that the rhyming words get progressively more violent, and they'll admire the effectiveness of that crescendo. Get them talking about how and why the poet is emphasizing certain words more than others. That mechanical awareness might be a good minimal expectation for them to take away from your course.)

And try humor, sure, but a little gore like Alicia's roadkill poems should also appeal to the horror-movie set, too. That one featuring the intestines like bandanas...

Julie Stoner

[Janet Kenny]

Chris,
If you don't make them laugh you won't reach them anywhere else.

I have just bought "The Oxford Book of Comic Verse" edited by John Gross.
ISBN 0-19-284086-X

From Chaucer to the present day.

Wonderful!
Janet

[Eloise Stonborough]

How about some Wendy Cope, it is approachable formal poetry and very funny. Also her parodies provide a good introduction/comparison with some of the greats, like her Wasteland Haikus and this sonnet:

Strugnell's Sonnets (VI)

Let me not to the marriage of true swine
Admit impediments. With his big car
He's won your heart, and you have punctured mine.
I have no spare; henceforth I'll bear the scar.
Since women are not worth the booze you buy them
I dedicate myself to Higher Things.
If men deride and sneer, I shall defy them
And soar above Tulse Hill on poet's wings --
A brother to the thrush in Brockwell Park,
Whose song, though sometimes drowned by rock guitars,
Outlives their din. One day I'll make my mark,
Although I'm not from Ulster or from Mars,
And when I'm published in some classy mag
You'll rue the day you scarpered in his Jag.

with sonnet 116:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

---
meter is an easier skill to learn if separate from 'poetry', try and get them to just write iambic prose, once that clicks it will be easier to integrate the poetry.

Eloise

[Michael Cantor]

While I'm not directly involved in the other activities, the high school poetry community that I (and a number of other Powows and local poets) interact with in Newburyport is very similar to what Daniel describes - the kids put out a magazine, hold Slams, write poems for each other, combine music and poetry, etc. - all under the leadership of an energetic and dedicated teacher - and it really works. These students are turned on, and clearly get a kick out of the readings (most of the reading is done by them, not the guest) and each other.

[Orwn Acra]

If you are to go with Michael Cantor's suggestion on rap, there is a wonderful song by Eminem that manages to rhyme "oranges" with something. I want to say "syringes" but I could be wrong. (and I totally forget the name of the song.) But definitely stay with Eminem - I can't think of a more lyrical rapper.

Anyway, I suggest:

Good Gnus by Wodehouse

When cares attack and life seems black,
How sweet it is to pot a yak,
Or puncture hares and grizzly bears,
And others I could mention;
But in my Animals "Who's Who"
No name stands higher than the Gnu;
And each new gnu that comes in view
Receives my prompt attention.

When Afric's sun is sinking low,
And shadows wander to and fro,
And everywhere there's in the air
A hush that's deep and solemn;
Then is the time good men and true
With View Halloo pursue the gnu;
(The safest spot to put your shot
is through the spinal column).

To take the creature by surprise
We must adopt some rude disguise,
Although deceit is never sweet,
And falsehoods don't attract us;
So, as with gun in hand you wait,
Remember to impersonate
A tuft of grass, a mountain-pass,
A kopje or a cactus.

A brief suspense, and then at last
The waiting's o'er, the vigil past;
A careful aim. A spurt of flame.
It's done. You've pulled the trigger,
And one more gnu, so fair and frail,
Has handed in its dinner-pail;
(The females all are rather small,
The males are somewhat bigger).

and

Hamlet by Spike Milligan

Said Hamlet to Ophelia,
'I'll do a sketch of thee,
What kind of pencil shall I use,
2B or not 2B?'

AND

from Monty Python:

The Philosopher's Drinking Song

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
who was very rarely stable.
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out consume
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
who was just as sloshed as Schlegel.

There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya
'bout the raisin' of the wrist.
Socrates himself was permanently pissed.

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
after half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it away,
'alf a crate of whiskey every day!
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
and Hobbes was fond of his Dram.
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart:
"I drink, therefore I am."

Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed

OR

Octopusses by Simon Goodway

I don't know what the fuss is,
Cooking's easy if you try.
Just take two octopusses
And you've got an octopi.


I could seriously go on and on. But I would definitely choose the "Philosopher's Drinking Song" or Nash's "Reflections on Ice-Breaking" because every highschool kid would love a nice little poem about drinking, really! Make poetry seem fun and funny and let them know that not everything has to have a deep meaning BUT, go over the light hearted poems just like you would a serious poem (just don't ruin the magic). I seriously can't stress that enought; I hate when teachers breeze by the enjoyable pieces to focus on a "real" poem. There is stuff to learn in light verse, too.

ps. people can tell you different, but they will be wrong. I just graduated and I know what I want.

[Duncan Gillies MacLaurin]

I'm always a bit wary of starting out with humorous poetry because it can be a hell of a job later on to convince the students that poetry should (also) be taken seriously.
So my advice is: don't!

When I teach first year high school students English (here in Denmark) I start with poetry because I think it's the best way of acquainting them with sociolinguistics and a sense of genre. So I start them on poetry without having to argue for its inherent merits. Very sneaky!!

Having said that I think do it's important to show students that writing and reading poetry can be fun, and I initially present them with easy, light-hearted stuff, BUT it must have weight enough so that they don't feel I'm insulting their intelligence. I also insert humoristic verse where it has a point to make.

In recent years I've started out with haiku. And the advantage of this is that after only a couple of lessons I can get the students to compose their own haiku. NO one baulks and says: "I can't write poetry!" They can all produce something.

Here are the texts for my poetry course as it now stands:

- How to write a haiku (my own compilation)

- Suggestions for writing haiku in English (taken from the Internet. There is a LOT of good material on the Internet, e.g. Michael Walsh's "Becoming a Haiku Poet" http://www.haikuworld.org/begin/mdwelch.apr2003.html,

- Elizabeth St Jacques, “Looking at haiku”, Writer’s Journal, 1990

- e.e. cummings "l(a”, 1958 (a kind of haiku though cummings was apparently unaware of the genre. I draw/write this on the blackboard and let them sit with it for at least 3 minutes.)

- William Carlos Williams, “This Is Just To Say”, 1962 (presented as prose - I ask the students to discuss the text and later ask them to guess the layout of the poem.)

- Tom Leonard, “Jist Ti Let Yi No”, 1984 (a comic Glaswegian rewrite of "This Is Just To Say")

- Tom Leonard, “Unrelated Incidents, 3” (“Six o' Clock News"), 1984 (a comic questioning of the domination of standard English)

- Liz Lochhead, “Kidspoem/Bairnsang”, 1998 (a poem where the same story is told in two different languages - English and Scots)

- John Agard, “Rainbow”, 1989 (+ questions)

- John Agard, “Listen Mr Oxford Don”, 1985

- Patience Agabi, "Prologue", 2000 (intellectual rap)

- Michael Lee Burgess, Ok, Here’s the Story, #16, Paraphonic, 2001 (Slam poetry, which the students can then try)

- Gerald Manley Hopkins, “Inversnaid”, 1883 (I cut up the words of each verse and get the students to find the right order.)

Duncan