[New-Poetry] Alexander's text

[Bob Grumman]

>  
>
> Some might say it would be useful in secondary schools, and it might, 
> but I feel giving them good poetry that's accessible and inclusive 
> (Sandburg, L. Hughes) would be far better. (Though I even saw Robert 
> Service useful at secondary level. It's like Whitman said of poor 
> reading material, it might be of limited service just in getting 
> people literate.  But I feel that can be done much better and with far 
> greater delight and insight with accessible writers like Twain, 
> Masters, cummings, Jeffers, . . . hell, even Ogden Nash.)
>
Skip, whaddya say to giving them a few inaccessible poems, too, to keep 
them from getting the idea that poetry is either rhyme or, uh, prose 
rhetoric with lineation?  And why not a few poems for the few able to 
appreciate them, or appreciate them with help.  I've done a few classes 
using what I call burstnorm poems--although with conventional poems, 
too--and always got one or two interested in them.  At least one or 
two.  In advanced placement English classes I've done better--I came 
back to one and was begged to repeat the performance for several who had 
been in a play and missed the first time.  Of course, it's partly not 
poetry, but the fact that they all knew me, a longtime sub at their 
school, and a bit of a character.

So, again, I harp on presenting the full continuum.

--Bob
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20090121/4e5e718f/attachment.html