One of the challenges in getting young people–or even ourselves–to take the time to enjoy poetry is just that: time. We live in a fast-paced culture, where “the newest generations, unlike their older peers, will expect an instant response from everyone they communicate with, and won’t have the patience for anything less” (“The Children of Cyberspace: Old Fogies by Their 20s,” by Brad Stone).
I’m not convinced that many members of the younger generations won’t learn to integrate the best and most exciting changes of the new with what is most valuable and lasting of the old, but I do know that I find it more challenging these days to carve out time in my day for quiet, slow, poetic reflection, free from frequent distractions and multitasking.
Poetry can be a powerful ally in our quest for a more balanced life. Here’s a way to help young readers to take in poetry one line at a time, to appreciate the value of re-reading poetry, and to pay close attention to the words and meanings and feelings in a poem. It’s also a fun project for adults who need to recharge their creative batteries.
Multimedia Poetry
1. Choose a poem. While there is nothing wrong with poems written specifically for children, I also like to show children that they can understand and appreciate many of the classic poems from our past. Poets.org’s Great Poems To Teach is a terrific resource for finding great poems to introduce to young readers. If you are doing this activity in a small group, it’s okay to have each child choose the same poem, since the results will be different, or each person can choose a different poem. Adults can play, too! While children may ask if they can use a poem they have written–in itself a good idea–this time use a published poem, since one of the goals is to use multimedia as a way to gain a deeper understanding of the poem.
2. Read the poem aloud. You read it. Have the child read it. Read it slowly, then more quickly. Talk about what happens when you pause in different places. Ask if any words are unfamiliar or unclear in either meaning or pronunciation (have a dictionary handy).
3. Talk about different ways to “present” the poem using visual and auditory media. Some ideas include photos (either your own or royalty-free photos from a Web site such as Stock.XCHNG), drawings or paintings, music you play and record yourself, public domain music, a comic strip, reading the poem aloud against a slide show of art work… You will come up with many more ideas.
4. Create the presentation. Spend time thinking about whether to divide the poem by lines or stanzas, or for very short poems, even one word at a time. Encourage children to look up words they do not completely understand and to think about which words in the line or phrase are the most important to the poem’s meanings, feelings, or images.
5. Schedule a time for everyone to present their poems. For a group, consider hosting a poetry reading, with time after the presentations for people to read other poems they have written or that they enjoy.
After watching Bright Star this week and taking inspiration from the Poem on the Range project in my previous blog entry, I was inspired to try my hand at Multimedia Poetry with the first stanza of John Keats’ Endymion. Putting together the slide show helped me to internalize the lines in a way I hadn’t before. I learned that “musk rose” is not red (as I first thought), but usually white, which influenced my choice of photo. Perhaps most important, I got all the mental energy of a double espresso without the caffeine rebound headache.
