Enthusing Kids with Poetry

[abu nuwas]

Schools seem now to provide pretty patchy education in poetry. What should parents/grand-parents do? Which poems would you begin with, and carry on with? I began with many poems with a strong metre, mostly Romantic, or of the Imperial age, and then graduated to War Poets, and different types of structure in my teens, when I notice many children are susceptible, and memorise for the rest of lives. Or they did.

[Wildcard]

Coming from a family that disdains poetry as the drivel of the overeducated, I intend to aquaint any children I have with poetry but first I have to get to know poetry for myself first. I have nothing to add as far as a plan but I am very interested in this topic and will be watching this thread. Thanks for starting it Abu

[billy]

what a great question.

i think if parents had a look round the net for a half decent site and used a little supervision to put them on the right track it would be start. i came to poetry really late. like mark a poem in my household was something to scoff at, and i scoffed with them even though i class myself as pretty smart. how wrong i was. (probably on both counts) i more or less taught myself what to read, of course i had strict guidelines being a smart person, if i didn't like a poem, i never bothered with that poet again. eventually i came to the realization i was in fact a moron.
if i could help my grand kids in their poetical education, it would be with a book of eclectic poetry, or two.
of course a couple of my poets would be their to help. teasedale, rossetti, and a few of the romantics. i think hughes would be a good read for them as he touches on many relevant subjects, and as much as i'm not keen on bukowski, there's no doubt he knows his craft. (i love some of his stuff) i think the most important thng i'd give would be a pencil/pen and note book so they coulf write down all those great images i never did. the jabberwocky would be the first poem i taught them, and an emily dicky poem would be the last.

Schools seem now to provide pretty patchy education in poetry. What should parents/grand-parents do? Which poems would you begin with, and carry on with? I began with many poems with a strong metre, mostly Romantic, or of the Imperial age, and then graduated to War Poets, and different types of structure in my teens, when I notice many children are susceptible, and memorise for the rest of lives. Or they did.

[Wildcard]

eventually i came to the realization i was in fact a moron.

I know exactly what you mean. I have had those epiphany/duh moments very recently . . . (sorry off-topic I know)

[abu nuwas]

eventually i came to the realization i was in fact a moron.

I know exactly what you mean. I have had those epiphany/duh moments very recently . . . (sorry off-topic I know)

I like that, Mark: The Feast of the Duh!

Having looked at what you and Billy said, and had a chance to think, I fancy that the most important thing would be, to treat it as you do with other things you like to see kids get into -- swimming, maybe play an instrument, sport, Scouts, and so on. Parents mainly want that the child has one extra thing to enjoy through life, and absolutely hate it when a child refuses even to sample something, with no idea of what it is like (as happens sometimes with food-- 'I don't like bananas' 'You've never had one! Just a bite..')

Most children have nursery rhymes around them. Sometimes they are sing-song, sometimes not. Either way, they give a good lead-in to meter.So, I think that perhaps the trick is to carry on, as nursery rhymes are left behind, with good children's poetry, or perhaps poetry selected for children. As I learnt to read very late, I missed much. The first poem I recall learning was:

Lars Porsena of Clausium, by the nine Gods he swore,
That the great house of Tarquin must suffer wrong no more
By the nine Gods he swore it, and named a trysting day,
And bade his messengers ride forth
East and West and South and North
To summon his array.

(I may have got the line-breaks all wrong).

I think I was then eight, but did not know half of what it meant until told. But once told, it went in easily, like so many things one picks up as a kid. I might have been told about my grandfather making crystal-sets in the morning, Lars Porsena in the afternoon.

After that, I would have been able to work out a good many grown-up poems, especially if they were read aloud, in great rolling rhythms, as many in our anthologies were. Later, when I went to school, we 'did' several Shakespeare plays, and the power of a phrase here or there was enough --'You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things' stuff like that. We also learnt poems which I assumed were by some old dead guy, and only later, realised that I could have bumped into them. I suppose so much of the poetry we had at home was old, I imagined that it all was.

As I write, I am beginning to spot the gap: between 4/5 to , in my case, 8. I would think ballads of one sort or another, and when the time is ripe, Lewis Carroll.

In brief (!) I think children should learn, in much the same way as poetry itself has developed: meter, then creative use of meter and structure, then free verse. Hmmmm.....

[Leanne]

In my house, I was always led to believe that my mother was the "smart" one (because she'd worked in a bank and knew lots of obscure Scrabble words) and my dad was the "dumb" one (because he'd left school early to join the Navy). Yet as my ability to read reached accord with being tall enough to reach the kitchen sink, my dad would get out our book of Banjo Paterson and we'd read a stanza each while doing the dishes. Once meter is in your blood, you can't get it out (I'm assuming, naturally, because there's no way I'd ever try). We also had Eisteddfods every year in primary school (ages 5-12), competing against other schools in music, dance, theatre and poetry -- we'd have to do a poem as a class and some people were selected to do one individually. Because rhyme and meter are mnemonics and keys to how a poem should be read, our choices were always strong in both. My favourite of these was the wonderful Tarantella by Hilaire Belloc, which I can still recite almost entirely to this day, as well as my second favourite The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes (which I always use as a lesson in metaphor, because I just love "the moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas").

So anyway, my poor old dumb dad, who can't do crosswords and has always been in some kind of menial job -- still is, and he's 60 this year -- is responsible for inflicting poetry upon me... and now the rest of the world!

[billy]

i notice both leanne and abu got outside influences working on them when young. till i was eleven i had a bout a years worth of schooling and till now from 11 maybe another oner two very broken years. i think whatever the parent/grandparent teaches poetry wise, should be reinforced with schools teach it. but properly. not as part of an english class but separately, like art. being halfway around the world i seldom get to see the grand kids and their parents are certainly not interested with showing them poetry. so they have little chance of coming to it unless its an autonomic response from the kids. they can both ski, she does the drama and dancing thing he the thai boxing. and golf. (which they both love) and they both get extra education off their mum. but poetry isn't part of it. so the question is, how do you give or show them poetry when others in the family look on it as unnecessary. i will be giving them a couple of books this year but what else? what do kids do when the haven't got a dad like leanne's or an education system that doesn't show them carrol, shakespeare, or the Iliad? apart from a couple of sonnets but without any real enthusiasm, and even then not till they're in secondary school.

[Leanne]

I like to teach my kids chemistry experiments, but what do they do when they don't have parents who like to blow stuff up? My husband likes Bob Dylan and the kids know all the words to his (horribly boring) songs, but what do they do when they don't have parents who listen to lots of nasal folk music? Why is poetry any different? The fact is, you can't teach kids something you don't have some kind of passion for yourself, or you run the risk of alienating them from the subject entirely. And we can't do a damned thing about parents who don't care enough about their kids to insist on regular schooling, except increase the vigilance and powers of welfare organisations, which is somewhat outside of our purview here.

But the thing about passion -- well, there are many, many teachers taking classes on poetry who do it only because it's part of the curriculum. They don't understand it themselves, nor do they care for it. They in turn weren't taught by someone with a passion for it, and the trouble with coming to something as an adult is that you either fall into it deeply and desperately, or you write it off as being too hard, too boring, too much effort. We need teachers to fall, not just into poetry but into every subject they teach, so that our children are infused with a desire not to know, but to seek. And we need to keep repeating until it sinks in, that poetry is more than words on a page, it is a record of all that is human, rewritten every time a new reader discovers it.

[abu nuwas]

Leanne -- That is such a touching cameo, and really instructive, surely. I wonder when your dad picked up the habit?

Billy --- I don't know what ages you are talking about, but I am a great believer in bribery, which can be done long-range. Must be brief. Like ''O rose thou art sick"

[billy]

bribery works if it's going to be something they want or have the time for. the one thing my kids and grand kids are good at spotting are bribes and most other sorts of con. they would take the bribe and giggle. now they're 8 and 9. both read books but not poetry
that said. to each their own. i'll sort them out some poetry for when i see them again. were i to talk of poetry on the net the rest of the family would ridicule the act and that would set them back from poetry for life i think. my kids and grands kids love tamla mowtown and soul music. that was my thing back in the day. but while a song is to be sung, poetry is just a stone to carried as ballast.

[abu nuwas]

Billy -- The bribe has to be worthwhile. And, not paid until after the event -- tho' I confess I have not been as successful as I would like. They can be remarkably resistant.

[Wildcard]

My Dad is a bluegrass banjo nut. He's damn good at it too. When my brother and I were in preschool, he was teaching us how to play guitar and bass so that we could be his carry-on bluegrass band. My point is the effect of the home tutorial is explicitly tempered by the parent's fervency. Had my father bought a guitar and gave it to me, I think I would have rode it like a pony. He was tricky enough (and fervent enough) to make me want (and beg for) a guitar. Now I'm glad he did.

[billy]

and i think that's the way to do it mark. thing is what if he wasn't into blue grass?

abu; come 7 year old, i was already immune to bribery (if i didn't get it, i'd steal it) trips, i took them on my own. i was brought up mainly by myself, so that begs a different question. how do we enthuse kids that slip through the cracks.

while schools teach english and maths. the art side is very minimal the poetry side even more so a lesser god. wouldn't it be good if art and creative writing (including poetry) were taught as a daily subject instead of a weekly one? one hour a day for creative studies.

[abu nuwas]

Billy, I we are all agreed that kids will have the best chance at anything, if they have someone inspirational, or if it is all around. You may have noticed that whenever you hear of some child prodigy having written a symphony at age three, it turns out that Dad was a bit of a composer and maybe other members of the family. I think your circumstances as a child ask a different question: what should, or could, society have done to keep you on track?

I am a believer in learning by heart, but not at the expense of putting kids off for life. As Leanne says, it won't work if the teachers are themselves not interested, or uncomprehending; it just won't. I have the feeling--I don't really know, except from the way some teacher friends talk -- that this is an area of eduction, like maths, where a sense that it is complicated puts kids off almost before they start. The teachers' response seems to be to get the kids to write their own poems -- but never with any hint of structure. That underestimates children, I am certain. An hour a day would be a lot -- unless one expected people to do HOMEWORK!!!!!!

[billy]

mot definitely, the teacher has to be a teacher and not a lampstand as so many are.
an hour a day seems a lot but if you do it right, as good teachers can, it could be made interesting. i'm sure of it. and the hour a day could mean poetry twice a week art twice a week and maybe drama twice a week. creative writing could be done in english. i like how Leanne does out forum classes. She almost always leads by example. with kids it could be similar but a verse a lesson and some (lots) of reading
that was one the few things i loved as kid, reading. i was self taught from newspapers and i loved it. Then i was a dreamer and the newspaper opened up whole new worlds. imagine if teachers could do that, i know some can. most i saw however couldn't, wouldn't even try. the system in retrospect, broke them. so i agree it is an educational thing. as for the homework. don't give it out. instead add an hour to the school day and make them do homework then. also make them do two hours homework over the weekend. that way many of the kids that never do their home work will at least have to look like they're doing it. as for the summer holidays. make it 4 weeks instead of 8 thats an extra 100 hours of extra education.

[abu nuwas]

Billy---make it 4 weeks instead of 8 thats an extra 100 hours of extra education.

NO! Keep the summer holiday!

As for the rest, yes, inspirational teachers, let off the lead a little.

People's idea of what children will, or will not, take to, or be capable of, are frequently far off the mark. A rough S London school, v largely black, decided to offer a Latin club. It was vastly oversubscribed! Now other schools have found the same thing. Even my grand-daughter (who, as much as she loves shopping in Piccadilly, has never agreed to enter the Royal Academy just opposite Fortnums) announced this Summer that she would be studying Classics (not language) at 'A' - level. And so she is--and finding it more challenging than she had supposed.

There are various poetry intitutions --eg the Poetry Society-- which do outreach work, and some of the theatres do likewise.

One of the advantages a boarding school has, is that has got the kid: so the whole day, afternoon and evening can be devoted to homework or clubs. Personally, I can't quite see the point of having children if you are going to get rid of them at the earliest opportunity.

[billy]

same here. we could never have packed our kids off to boarding school. so! about the 4 weeks? let's compromise, let's say 6 instead of 8.
if kids are given chance to learn in a good way, they will every time. kids were built to learn. sadly many teachers weren't built to teach. i hope the daughter does well. i do like the idea of some of the open schools that teach outside when possible. not sure of the academic success but it sounds good. having nature as the class room (weather permitting)

[grannyjill]

This is such an interesting thread. I was a late reader (around 8 years old) but I had a mother who recited stuff like Hiawatha, and 'Drake is in his hammock etc.' and despite not starting to write poetry until my late 50's I did have all those rhymes in my head.
One of my grandkids is definitely going to be targetted by me (the other 5 may be a little more elusive). He's five and so bright (and troublesome) and we have made a bargain that he and I are going to write 'stories' together. He said 'Can we start right now, Nanny?' We couldn't...but, we did sketch out a plot about a boy and his granny who chase a monster and at the end, after losing sight of the monster a bigger monster appears who then chases them! I think he would love writing poetry too.
I do recite the chunks of poetry I learned at school to them and sing stuff like 'Never smile at a crocodile' but even though they are all under 7 I sometimes feel, when they listen, that they are merely humouring me.

Leanne, re: Tarantella I loved it and one day wrote an up-dated version. See the fun poetry section.

[abu nuwas]

Jill--- it is their job to humour you; they are in the humoring business! And your job to be humoured! My, you'll be giving up the right to repeat the same story of again next....

Ah yes! 'Drake's Drum'! That's a goodie. I remember my kids liked that although as a rule it was a case of drawing a horse to water, despite being from the world of non-cool, and with words they did not know. In fact, they rather relished 'Nombre Dios bay', as I recall. Funny things, children...Sounds as though you are doing all the right stuff.

[billy]

my grand kids like golf and kick boxing
i was thinking about kicking some poetry into them next time i get to see them