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Description
From Horace to Billy Collins, poets have insisted that their
art should be both sweet and useful, a source of allure and
advice. How, though, can we bring poetry’s pleasures
alive in the schoolroom? How can we integrate them with such
enduring curricular tasks as teaching our students the art
of close reading, the basics of literary history, and the
vexed, complex relationships between literature and other
disciplines (history, psychology, religion, and so on)? If
you teach English or Language Arts or Reading, Drama, Language
Immersion, Creative Writing, or any other humanities program—from
History to Art—that might profitably incorporate the
art and study of poetry, you are invited to explore such questions
in this seminar.
Our investigation will be organized around four core topics:
These topics will allow us to discuss both theoretical and
practical matters involved in the teaching of poetry: not
only the precision tools of close reading, but also the cultural
work of poetry, its place in readers’ lives both in
and out of school. Poems to be read will range from ancient
Greek lyrics to Lucille Clifton’s “homage to my
hips” and “Barrio Speedwagon Blues” by Urayoán
Noel, from Canto V of Byron’s Don Juan to Sharon Creech’s
verse novel Love that Dog. At several points during the seminar,
participants will present poems and perform them, following
guidelines supplied by the NEA / Poetry Foundation National
Recitation Contest, “Poetry
Out Loud.” (A visit to the Foundation, where we
met Program Director Stephen Young, was one of the highlights
of the last “Say Something Wonderful” seminar,
and will be repeated in 2009.)
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