national poetry month

Call Us What We Carry

Posted on by wkennar

April is National Poetry Month which means today is the perfect time for a post about Amanda Gorman’s collection Call Us What We Carry. 

This was a book I read slowly, little by little, to savor the rhythm and eloquence of the words. My copy is full of sticky notes, marking the pages where I felt especially moved. Here are just a few such passages:

From “At First”:

“We became paid professionals of pain,

Specialists in suffering,

Aces of the ache,

Masters of the moan.

March shuddered into a year,

Sloshing with millions of lonely,

An overcrowded solitude.”

From “& So”:

“Since the world is round,

There is no way to walk away

From each other, for even then

We are coming back together.”

From “Fury & Faith”:

“But the point of protest isn’t winning;

It’s holding fast to the promise of freedom,

Even when fast victory is not promised.

Meaning, we cannot stand up to police

If we cannot cease policing our imagination,

Convincing our communities that this won’t work,

When the work hasn’t even begun,

That this can wait.

When we’ve already waited out a thousand suns.

By now, we understand

That white supremacy

& the despair it demands

Are as destructive as any disease.” 

From “The Miracle of Morning”:

“While we might feel small, separate & all alone,

Our people have never been more closely tethered.

The question isn’t if we can weather this unknown,

But how we will weather this unknown together.

So, on this meaningful morn, we mourn & we mend.

Like light, we can’t be broken, even when we bend.”

And, in case you missed it, you can click here to read my post about Ms. Gorman’s collectible gift edition of The Hill We Climb. 

At a Fork in the Road

Posted on by wkennar

Because April is National Poetry Month, I have a story I’d like to share with you this week.

A few months ago, my son and his fifth grade class were instructed to memorize Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken.”

Granted, it’s a famous poem with an important message.  But why did my son need to memorize it?  And in the fifth grade?  (I don’t think I read it until high school).  His teacher never explained the reason(s) behind her assignment or why this particular poem was chosen.

I worked with Ryan, as he learned the poem line-by-line.  I tried to take it a step further, talking to him about the poem and asking him questions his teacher wasn’t asking at school.  

“What does it mean to you?”  

“What do you think the poet is saying?”

We had a discussion about the poem and poetry in general – that, like many types of art, there isn’t always just one way to look at, read, or interpret a piece of art.

Ryan wasn’t overly impressed.  The poem became a chore.

And months later, his teacher must have forgotten about it, because Ryan’s class never was asked to recite the poem.

I fear that an experience like this may turn Ryan off from poetry.  Though I hope not.  These early experiences with art really do have so much power and influence over our later choices and our later opinions about what we like and don’t like, what we’re good at, and what we think we’re not-so-good at.

When I was in the fourth or fifth grade, my classroom teacher painted over one of my watercolors-in-progress, and after that, I never wanted to take an art class.  In fact, I never wanted to draw or paint again.  (To read more about it, click here and read my personal essay “Too often, teachers extinguish a student’s spark” that was published in the Christian Science Monitor back in 2004.) 

For now, Ryan and I talk about poetry in terms of song lyrics.  It’s fun and enjoyable and an organic way to learn – the way all learning can be.