Thursday, November 13, 2014

Why Poetry?

I am teaching the Grammar of Poetry every week to a group of kids ranging in age from 8 -15.Really, why? Who needs poetry? What is the importance of Iambic, Trochaic and Anapestic meter? Tropes? Does anyone even know what that means anymore?  These kids do. I quiz them every week. They are learning difficult words and more importantly, they are learning what they mean. They are owning them.

It's all about beauty. It's all about understanding the music in words and making them sing. It's about rhythm and beat, dance and song and how even really young kids can use words as tools to express their hopes, dreams, and world within.

The kids are writing and working together and reciting and reading poems out-loud and laughing together.  Beyond all of that they are working really hard. Some of them don't get it. Some of them feel pushed. And they are. Which is good. Because they are being stretched beyond what's comfortable, they are learning that words and tropes and rhythm are tools to be used to express joy and pains, sorrow and beauty.

Poetry is an educational must-have.

@Golden Grasses 2008-2013. All photographs, artwork and text are the property of the owner unless otherwise stated. Don't miss a thing! Subscribe to Golden Grasses and get our articles right to your inbox!

No comments: