| “I stumbled upon a poem last week that I’m still trying to figure out – did it ‘confirm my existing beliefs’ – or rattle them?” I made that comment recently in response to a post on Substack, and just yesterday in my daily post, I shared that poem, “How I Discovered Poetry.” I found Marilyn Nelson’s book of poetry with the same title on a middle school library shelf the other day, and as I was flipping to the back of the book in search of an index (I was curious if Nelson had included a list of poets who inspired her), I landed on the eponymous poem. The title made me think back to how and when I “discovered poetry” and how excited I was. |  |
At that time, I was in the 8th grade and in Mrs. Nader’s English class. Of course, I’d never heard of Emily Dickinson, nor was I aware of Dickinson’s take on “what is poetry”:
“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?”
In Ms. Nader’s class, we had just started a unit on poetry, and (yes, I’m this old) we studied lyrics to songs on the newly released Beatles’ album “Abbey Road.”
“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?”
In Ms. Nader’s class, we had just started a unit on poetry, and (yes, I’m this old) we studied lyrics to songs on the newly released Beatles’ album “Abbey Road.”
 | At some point after we had covered a handful of the songs, Mrs. Nader read a poem aloud to the class: Because I could not stop for death He kindly stopped for me. The carriage held but just ourselves And immortality. Whoaaaa – what was that? I felt as though the top of my head were taken off. Who in the world wrote that? That was my introduction to Emily Dickinson. |
Following our study of “Because I could not stop for Death,” we investigated “After great pain, a formal feeling comes,” and that image in Line 10, “This is the hour of lead,” and our class discussion about it blew my mind (I’ll share more on that in a later post).
 | Now, years later, standing in a middle school library with How I Discovered Poetry in my hand, I was eager to read Ms. Nelson’s take on how she was introduced to poetry (and of course I wondered if, by chance, Emily Dickinson played any part in her story). I turned to page 97, and there was the poem, “How I Discovered Poetry.” The first image and following lines (with the poem’s nod to William Wordsworth) were filled with passion (heck, the opening simile is “It was like soul-kissing”). But then I got to the banjo playing. I was jolted. Say what? Following the banjo playing came “darkies, pickaninnies, disses and dats.” |
| What in the world was going on here? My mood turned suddenly. How and why would a teacher have done this? “When I finished,” wrote Nelson, the sole African-American student in the class, “my classmates stared at the floor. We walked silent / to the buses, awed by the power of words.” I was stunned. Suddenly, my whole body was so cold no fire could warm me. What was going on here? Did Ms.Purdy purposely give this poem to young Ms. Nelson to read to the class to embarrass her? Hmm…no sign, though, of classmates laughing at her – plus I can’t believe a teacher who had seen “the darkest eyes in the room brim” would do something so intentionally as to extinguish a student’s enthusiasm. |  |
Did the teacher select this poem to challenge (replace?) her classmates’ existing beliefs? [Remember that Substack post I alluded to at the start of this post? That post, by Dr. Julie Weber, asserted, “Most people read to confirm their existing beliefs. A few read to challenge it. Almost nobody reads to replace it.”] After all, the students in Ms. Nelson's poem did walk silently to the buses, and the young Ms. Nelson was now awed by “the power of words.”
What was your reaction when reading this poem?
I’ll share a little more about all of this tomorrow.
What was your reaction when reading this poem?
I’ll share a little more about all of this tomorrow.
RSS Feed
