Poetry Readings in the Classroom

Abstract

THE teaching of poetry, like the teaching of grammar, seems to present a multitude of problems for the English teacher. The majority of high school students are simply turned off by poetry, especially the boys. For them, poetry is for sissies and old women with nothing better to do with their time. Girls, too, seem to dislike poetry, at least the kind taught in most English classes. There is obviously no simple solution to this problem, but a classroom poetry reading may be a good place to begin. If you have ever attended a poetry reading at a local university or city library, you may realize how boring it can be for someone not genuinely interested in poetry. The poet generally reads from his volumes of poetry without ever commenting on the individual poems or on how he came to write them. Question and answer periods between poet and audience are virtually unheard of. With a little modification, however, poetry readings can be well adapted to the high school English class. As an English major in Secondary Education at Arizona State University and a published poet, I was recently asked by a friend who was doing her student teaching at Chandler High School to read some of my poetry to her three classes. These were elective classes in mass media comprised of juniors who were just starting a unit on poetry. I was a little leery at first because I had never given a reading and because I wasn't certain that a regular poetry reading would be successful in a high school class. I nevertheless accepted and started planning a slightly offbeat approach for a poetry reading. When I accepted my friend's offer to do a reading, I asked her not to tell her students much about me except that I was a student at Arizona State, a friend of hers, and a published poet. This would give me a chance to work my own introduction in with the reading. When I arrived at the class, she introduced me simply as being the poet she had told them about and immediately handed over the class to me. I asked the students