Those are the words some kid scrawled across a nearby desk in my 11th grade English class. For some reason, those words stuck with me for the last however many years and not the words of the many poets I should have been reading instead. Speaking ignorantly, poetry is just songs without music - right? Should be right up my alley.
(I understand these are different things but are also interrelated. Don't @ me)
11th grade English is lost to me (sorry, Mrs. Kanowith). I remember those three words, that we read Death of a Salesman and watched.... Mulan, maybe? But poetry? I guess we covered it, I mean, why else would those words exist drilled in my brain?
The whole point is that a) I am an idiot for not paying attention those years ago and b) I don't know anything about poem structure.
Turns out b is less important to getting started than I thought it would be. That, or I actually remember more about it than I think I do.
I've found the Academy of American Poets poem-a-day to be a useful starting point. For the last 6 years I've tried to read something every day, but it usually ends up being some fiction that I've already read or something directly related to the fiction I've already read. Meanwhile, poem-a-day has introduced me to an incredible variety of voices where if I only ever continued to read long-form fiction for 10 minutes a day I never would have been exposed to.
I've really loved a couple pieces from the last few weeks. Jakarta, January hit me like a ton of bricks and brought that day rushing back. Hon or We have both traveled from the other side of some hill, one side of which we may wish we could forget speaks succinctly in a way I'm (apparently) incapable of. I've also been working through Clint Smith's Counting Descent, where I've spent hours upon hours thinking about "How to Fight". To spin all this back on my day job, poets.org also has a bunch of Teacher Resources to check out too.
Thanks for making it this far. I remembered I own a domain and this is a way to write a bunch and not flood my feeds more than I already do.
(I understand these are different things but are also interrelated. Don't @ me)
11th grade English is lost to me (sorry, Mrs. Kanowith). I remember those three words, that we read Death of a Salesman and watched.... Mulan, maybe? But poetry? I guess we covered it, I mean, why else would those words exist drilled in my brain?
The whole point is that a) I am an idiot for not paying attention those years ago and b) I don't know anything about poem structure.
Turns out b is less important to getting started than I thought it would be. That, or I actually remember more about it than I think I do.
I've found the Academy of American Poets poem-a-day to be a useful starting point. For the last 6 years I've tried to read something every day, but it usually ends up being some fiction that I've already read or something directly related to the fiction I've already read. Meanwhile, poem-a-day has introduced me to an incredible variety of voices where if I only ever continued to read long-form fiction for 10 minutes a day I never would have been exposed to.
I've really loved a couple pieces from the last few weeks. Jakarta, January hit me like a ton of bricks and brought that day rushing back. Hon or We have both traveled from the other side of some hill, one side of which we may wish we could forget speaks succinctly in a way I'm (apparently) incapable of. I've also been working through Clint Smith's Counting Descent, where I've spent hours upon hours thinking about "How to Fight". To spin all this back on my day job, poets.org also has a bunch of Teacher Resources to check out too.
Thanks for making it this far. I remembered I own a domain and this is a way to write a bunch and not flood my feeds more than I already do.