Is April Truly the Cruelest Month?

By April Pameticky

    ​I am a poet and a writer.  It’s taken me years to take ownership of those words, in large part because I so often considered those activities somehow frivolous, self-indulgent, or superfluous.  I saw them as ‘extra’ to my other roles: teacher, wife, mother.
 
But I find there is nothing ‘extra’ about engaging the world as a poet first; that it’s the lens by which I measure and experience everything.  It’s how I reconcile injustice and how I make sense of the senseless.  Poetry is how I find my way home, both spiritually and metaphorically.  And it’s often how I reflect on my every day, ordinary life.
 
While I loosely studied poetry in college, my primary focus had always been fiction.  It was only about ten years ago that I started exploring and studying poetry on my own.  The irony, of course, is that as an English teacher, didn’t I always love poetry?  The answer is No. More often than not, I believed that Poetry [capital P on purpose] was actually somehow lofty and above me.  Poetry was for the ascetics and more ‘literary,’ not for me, who read trashy urban fantasy novels all summer long.
 
But while pregnant with my oldest daughter, I found myself nesting in unexpected ways, drawn to more creative expression, and reading in ways I had never bothered to before.  It helped that some friends put more contemporary poetry in my hands.
 
Today, I take comfort and solace in poems:
 
    Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
    I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.
            23 Psalm
 
    Do not go gentle into that good night,
    Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
    Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
         Do not go gentle into that good night –Dylan Thomas
 
Poetry reminds us of perspective, like in the lines from Rae Armantrout’s “Thing:”
 
    We love our cat
    for her self
    regard is assiduous
    and bland,
 
    for she sits in the small
    patch of sun on our rug
    and licks her claws
    from all angles
 
    and it is far
    superior
    to "balanced reporting"
 
    though, of course,
    it is also
    the very same thing.
 
 
​Poets respond to the world with humanity, giving word to our fear and unrest.  Rattle maintains the series Poets Respond, and poet Francesca Bell touches on our collective anxiety in her poem “Love in the Time of Covid-19.”  She writes
 
    I held my hands steady
    in the water’s reassuring scald,
    trying and trying
    to save you.
 

As teachers and educators, we have the opportunity to either spoil poetry for our students, or introduce them to something that will be their companion through life.  My concern is that we often want to ‘unlock’ a poem, somehow divine its key, and then we expect our students to do the very same thing.  We approach a poem as a Biology I student might a formaldehyde frog.  I love how Elizabeth Alexander defines poetry with such concrete detail in “Ars Poetica #100: I Believe:” 
 
    Poetry is what you find
    in the dirt in the corner,
    overhear on the bus.
 

While poetry is both a craft and an artform, and there are certainly ‘rules’ and ‘conventions’ that apply (as anyone who has ever had to coach students through their own poetry revision process can attest), poems are also this wonderful opportunity to live with ambiguity.  To grieve that we are no longer in our classrooms, but to celebrate that we are still teachers, that we can provide comfort and care to our students.  So as we enter April and National Poetry Month, I want to encourage my fellow educators to give your students an opportunity to really engage with poems.
 
The internet can be an amazing resource, even if an educator feels they don’t quite ‘get’ poetry.  Take some direction from Dante di Stefano’s award-winning poem “Prompts (for High School Teachers Who Write Poetry” when he says
 
    Write the uncounted hours you spent
    fretting about the ones who cursed you out
    for keeping order.
 
 
For those teaching remotely, the Dear Poet Project 2020 [Poetry.org] is an awesome opportunity to engage directly with poets.  Students are encouraged to write letters after viewing the poets’ videos—two of my favorites are participating this year: Joy Harjo and Kwame Dawes.  Poets read and discuss their works, and students can then respond.
 
For educators wanting to embrace their inner poet, here are a couple of prompts to consider, but don’t feel you must limit yourself!  We at KATE would love to read what you come up with.  I want to encourage you to embrace your inner poet and to not strive so much for perfection or that ‘A’ poem.  Instead, respond to where you are each day.  There are some prompts provided below, as well as some further resources for inspiration.

Prompts:

• Write a Dear Student poem.  What is it that you would like to say to your students right now?
• What about a Dear Parent poem?  [I once wrote a poem called “10 Things I Don’t Say at Parent-Teacher Conferences]
• Define Teacher

 
Resources:

• 10 Prompts from April Pameticky’s series
• Materials for Teachers from Poets.Org
• National Poetry Writing Month: [NaPoWriMo]
• Poetry Foundation

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