The Challenges in Teaching Poetry

VIDEO DESCRIPTION

Billy Collins, poet, talks about the challenges of teaching poetry. He gives the example teaching students what the meaning is of a certain poem.

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The Challenges in Teaching Poetry   bigthink   Billy Collins   interpretation poem   meaning poem   poet job   teaching literature   teaching poetryThe Challenges in Teaching Poetry   

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

The way poetry is taught is with great emphasis on the interpretation. So, we have this thing—the poem and we want to create this other thing called the interpretation of the poem which stands as almost begins to compete with the poem and then the worst cases, replaces the poem. So once we have the interpretation, we can actually discard the poem. But that’s the worst-case scenario. The question what does the poem mean is the deadening question. It makes people nervous, it makes students nervous to have to respond do a poem not a pleasurably feeling it is intact, but by being put on the spot having to come up with some answer that the teachers knows and it’s not telling you. It is the worst kind of teaching where you play a game gold guess what the teacher’s thinking. A lot of teachers like to do that because it is a cheap kind of power. A better question I think then what does a poem mean is “How does the poem get where it’s going?” Instead of seeing it as something to be reduced to some other text, to see the poem as a journey, as moving sort of point by point navigation through itself to some ending. Students are much more relying to follow the progress of poem and to notice where turns and how it expands or contracts or becomes funny or serious. How it moves around through itself than to be put on spot and try to come up to with an answer about interpretation. Education, I mean teaching literature allows you as a writer to reread literature the kind of literature you want to reread semester after semester. Ended up in teaching also gives you time to write. I think, I find the teaching and poetry go right together and I do not see any conflict there. There is an interview-type question that involves the word balance. And it is so often “How do you balance, having six children, and starting this new company, and writing a novel and being a ballerina at the same time. How do you balance all those things?” If the question where, I am not trying to put question in your mouth but if the question were ask to a poet, they would be somebody like, “How do you manage to balance writing a poem every two weeks and doing absolutely nothing in between?” Then, that would be, you now, “How do you deal with delicate act of balancing there? It is not a labor intensive job but, Max Spearbound went quoting this, said that the hardest thing about being a poet was knowing what to do with the other 23 1/2 of the day.

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http://www.contentdeity.com/video/27281810/The-Challenges-in-Teaching-Poetry.html

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