Dear Edmond,

It is most kind of you to lay out your system for teaching poetry with
such clarity. I think your "crude instrument" complements well those by
Helen Vendler, Robert Hass, and others that can be used to introduce a
poem, and I look forward to trying it out in a class sometime. 

Certainly, an attention to words, words, words, and the spaces between
words is a matter for either a savvy audience or one that has already
been attuned to the complexities of a text and is now ready to deal with
nuances and their nonetheless considerable impact. If you are not
familiar with Robert Hass's essay "Listening and Making," you might find
its identification of three stages of rhythmic patterning to be of
interest. The poems you cite, which make heavy use of repetition and
prominent display of rhythm, would fall into his first category, rhythms
that mesmerize us and remove our power to act separately.

Best wishes,
Natalie (Gerber)

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Edmond Wright
Sent: Monday, October 08, 2007 3:01 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: How to teach the reading of poetry

Natalie,

It is not 'words, words, words' that we must begin with but the fun of
the
rhythm and of the word-PLAY.  Lots of rhythmical engagement with verse
of
all kinds where the rhythm is a dominant feature is the best place to
start
with younger (and older) pupils.  There are many excellent anthologies
of
children's verse (and nonsense and whimsical verse) that can be mined
for
examples.  I find rain-chants and war-chants go down well -- though I
always
keep them for the end of the lesson as they are hyper-excited by the
time we
have got the chants powerfully presented (the teacher in the next lesson
can
calm them down!)

A good reading must be based on a thorough acquaintance with the text.
One
has to insist with older students that the poem has to be read through
at
least three or four times aloud before an understanding can even begin.
The
next step is to ask 'What is your first guess as to what this poem is
about?', coupled with the reassurance that, just like a scientist, one
has
to begin with a rough hypothesis and then test it to see whether it will
do.
Once some brief guess had been suggested, they have to find something in
the
poem that appears to bear out that hypothesis.  It doesn't matter
whether
the guess is 'right' or 'wrong':  the important thing is to produce some
part of the poem that seems to bear out the guess.

Here I apply a crude instrument for ferreting out the meaning.  They
have to
check that portion they have selected against the 'CRID grid' -- CRID
being
an acronym for 'Contrast, Rhythm, Imagery, Diction'.  I say "Has the
poet
used any contrasts to bring out the point you have detected (any
ironies,
puns, paradoxes, antitheses, etc)?  Any rhythm (alliteration, assonance,
word-repetition, etc.)?  Any image (metaphor, metonym).  Is there
anything
unusual about the words that have been chosen (simple, sophisticated,
Anglo-Saxon, Latinized, informal, formal, modern, old-fashioned -- a
mixture)?  Do any of these work together -- for example, is a contrast
helped out by a balancing rhythm?  Is there anywhere a contrast on the
choice of words?  Are any of the images standing in contrast?"

By this time I say "Have you learned anything more about what you think
the
poet is trying to say?" and, in most cases, by this time, some
refinement of
the thought and feeling has emerged.  I say that to them that they have
'improved their hypothesis', and now is the time to test it again, and
so I
ask them to find another place in the poem where this NEW hypothesis
seems
to be borne out.  Once more, fortunately, it is not a case of being
right or
wrong about the interpretation, for that is what they are coming up
with,
THEIR individual interpretations, supported by evidence from the text.
Helpful to ask "Any similar contrasts to what we found before?  Any
similar
rhythms?  Any similar images, or choice of words -- on any sharp
contrasts
to what we found before?"  The students are well into following out the'
hermeneutic circle', by which the text can be returned to again and
again,
producing a spiralling upward of understanding (which cannot be purely
the
teacher's understanding for what the students contribute can be novel
and
enlightening).  The great thing is that teacher and students are engaged
in
a common process of discovery, and it is never the case that students
are
trying to guess what 'the right' interpretation is.  I recommend that in
writing on their own with a new poem that they always begin tentatively,
saying 'At first glance, it would seem that the poet is trying to . . .'
--
'Let us see whether this guess can work as a key for us into the
mystery'.

You will see that this process can be repeated as long as is needed.
What
results is a gradual revelation of the poem's rhetorical force.  What is
bound to emerge is a better understanding of how to say the poem, where
to
pause, where to stress contrasts of words, where to link one's
intonation in
one part of the poem with that in another.  One can't read poems
successfully without having some grasp of what they are all about.

Edmond Wright


Dr. Edmond Wright
3 Boathouse Court
Trafalgar Road
Cambridge
CB4 1DU
England

Email: [log in to unmask]
Website: http://www.cus.cam.ac.uk/~elw33
Phone [00 44] (0)1223 350256

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