spoken word

[asakiyume]

We'd looked at "quiet" poetry earlier--the sort you read to yourself in books--and so I brought in some recordings of poetry being performed for my students to react to and think about.

I played them Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner's "Tell Them," and felt a warm glow as they reacted visibly to her lines about Styrofoam cups and dusty rubber slippers, and my favorite line, about the children flinging like rubber bands across the street. And then when I asked them which lines stuck with them, they had so many others they loved too--the curling letters, "toasted dark brown as the carved ribs of a tree stump," "the breath of God," "papaya golden sunsets" ... and "the ocean level with the land" and "we see what is in our own back yard."

They heard what her poem said.

I played them Elizabeth Acevedo performing "Night Before First Day of School, the opening poem to her novel-in-poems, The Poet X (which I'm reading--except I lent it out to one of the students), and they loved "I feel too small for all that is inside me."

I played them Laurie Anderson's "From the Air," and several students fell in love with it. What's it about, I asked, and some talked about a plane and a crash, but several said, "It's about more than that. It's about living your life--'there is no pilot': you're the pilot. But you're not alone."

I played them Billy Collins reading "Monday," and they got his teasing affection for poetry and poets.

--I should have asked them if they noticed the boys angling across the street... in context, an echo of Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner's poem.

And then we turned to some Tupac Shakur raps. The students range in age from 22 to 55, mainly White, but everyone knew those raps. They recited right along with them, and by the end of "Dear Mama," several were in tears--I think maybe not just for the love in it, but because that love came in spite of the fact that Tupac's mom was an addict. In that piece he's acknowledging all she's gone through and asserting that he loves her as she is. **Many** of my students really want that to be possible for them, with their kids.

I felt like I had wandered into a room so much bigger than I had imagined.

"He's not dead," one student said stoutly. Yeah. Sometimes your presence and your creation is so meaningful that even death can't decommission you.

Comments

[kore]

Aw, that's amazing. What a lovely range of work you opened up to them.

[asakiyume]

This has been my "ah, an excuse to foist things I like off on students" lesson.

[evelyn_b]

It brings tears to MY old-person eyes to hear that 22-year-olds still recognize Tupac - thought I guess I shouldn't be that surprised. I'm glad your students are getting so much out of hearing and talking about poetry. <3

[asakiyume]

Not just 22-year-olds! One of the older women said her 16-year-old son loves Tupac--so, yeah! Intergenerational sharing!

[gwynnega]

This is so great.

[asakiyume]

It was so great to watch other people's first experiences (well, not with Tupac, but with the other stuff).

[mallorys_camera]

What a great selection of pieces! It must be quite something to be taught by you.

[asakiyume]

Ehhh, I wonder how great it is. If students learn by virtue of the teacher's having fun (which would be super if it were the case, but I kind of doubt it is?) then maybe!

[mallorys_camera]

Of course, students learn when teachers are obviously excited about what they're teaching! :-)

But more than that, there's a pattern to those poems and pieces that I think it takes a special person to see. And you're that person.

[asakiyume]

That's a wonderful thought--if it's truly the case, I'm delighted.

[amaebi]

Writing and reading: how the dead speak.

Thanks for sharing that wonderful class.

[asakiyume]

Yeah, and they connect us so powerfully to the dead--they bring them right here for us, even if they've been gone for thousands of years.

It's my pleasure! Thanks for letting me <3