[New-Poetry] Alexander's text

[Skip Fox]

Bob,

 

Of course I'd drag them in deeper. Into Dickinson and Eliot, Williams and
H.D., Stevens and Ashbery even. Hell, I'd be chanting Hopkins on occasion. 

 

And we'd see that they weren't so inaccessible and much, much more.

 

Of course.

 

Skip

 

 

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

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
[mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of Bob Grumman
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 4:51 PM
To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Alexander's text

 





 

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.)

 

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