Take Time for Poetry
By Carolyn Lyon James
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
– Robert Frost
As an elementary student, I disliked studying poetry. The teacher would hand out mimeographed copies of a poem, and we all sniffed the paper, more interested in the smell of the ink and the warmth of the paper fresh out of the machine than we were in the words that were written on it. I was a slow reader and was happy when that day’s lesson fit on half the page. My relief turned to consternation when I realized that even after reading through the lines multiple times, I still didn’t entirely understand what they meant. After all our lessons in grammar and sentence structure, here were mere fragments and phrases, starting on one line and ending on the next. Sometimes the poem rhymed; many times it didn’t. I could understand one line, only to be flummoxed and confused by the next one.
It wasn’t until I reached junior high school that I truly began to appreciate the beauty of poetry and the freedom of expression it allowed. I loved how so much feeling and emotion could be packed into such a small space, and how, just by adjusting which words sat on which line, the meaning of the whole poem could change. Best of all, I began to understand that poems were up for interpretation. They could mean different things to different people.
Poetry is all around us. It’s scribbled on bathroom stalls. It can be found on bumper stickers. And it’s the stuff of song lyrics. Many times, people don’t think of song lyrics as being a form of poetry, but combining words with music can help increase understanding of the meaning of the words and deepen the listener’s experience.
Blogger/educator Brynn Allison takes the idea of poetry and music one step further in “15 Poem and Song Pairings to Liven up Your Poetry Unit.” She suggests that students read particular poems and listen to similarly themed songs to help them gain insights into both song and poem. She also offers some really good tips for guided discussion and related classroom exercises for the students.
Here are a few of her suggested match-ups:
- “The Lighthouse” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and “The Lighthouse’s Tale” by the band Nickel Creek
- “Richard Cory” by Edwin Arlington Robinson and “Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles
- “Pyramus and Thisbe” by Ovid and “Sk8er Boy” by Avril Lavigne
I had so much fun with this idea that I paired one of my favorite poems by Robert Frost, “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” with the song “Seasons in the Sun” by Terry Jacks, because both are about how fleeting life can be.
The first Wednesday of October is Random Acts of Poetry Day. According to DaysOfTheYear.com, “Random Acts of Poetry Day is your opportunity to, for just a moment, bring others into the world in which you live.” Writing poetry doesn’t need to be confined to one day a year, but maybe some people need a target date to gather up the courage to share their personal written works of art.
Writing poetry doesn’t have to be hard. It doesn’t have to be perfect. And it doesn’t have to be long. Take a moment to describe the smell of the air on a perfect autumn day. Write down how you feel when you hear children on a playground. Or think about how that first cup of coffee makes you feel in the morning. Then share your new poem with a friend or colleague. Or write it on a sticky note and leave it on a wall in the hallway. Or put a verse under the windshield wipers of a random car in the parking lot. Your unique voice may be just what someone else needs to hear today.
