A Re-Introduction to Poetry

Lit, Mary Karr's new memoir, and the book she'll be reading from next Monday, is about motherhood, alcoholism, recovery, conversion--and lots more besides. One important component of the story that I haven't seen mentioned much in the (very positive) reviews, is Karr's life as a poet--the deepening and development of her poetic sensibility.

In a funny and touching chapter entitled "There's No Biz Like Po-Biz," Karr recounts her experiences as a community teacher in Minneapolis, where she worked with a group of women with mental disabilities. Every week, she would read them two poems--one outstanding, the other "crummy," and take careful note of their reactions. Some 80% of the time, the women plumped--often with wild enthusiasm--for the great poem (no matter how "difficult) over the bad one, a rate, Karr mordantly observes, as good as that of professional literary critics. The experience confirmed for her the potency of poetry.

It's an instructive little story. Poetry and poets are so often accused of elitism, but perhaps the real snobbery is the mindset that poetry would just "go over the heads" of certain people. Moreover, lots of people are convinced that poetry does go over their heads. Their experience with poetry in the classroom probably has a lot to do with this, where, traditionally at least, students are expected to pounce on the poem, to tear it apart and get down to the marrow of meaning--before they've had much of chance, or any chance at all, to drink in its music. Unless a poem gets you in the gut, how much does it matter what it does in the noodle?

One of my favorite, small victories as a high school teacher, I remember, was while talking with a senior who was about to graduate. I was stunned to hear him say that one of the best things about going on to college and majoring in engineering was that he'd never have to endure poetry again. Wasn't there a single poem that he'd enjoyed over the last four years? I asked. No, he insisted, not one. And there never would be. I ran back to my office and grabbed a copy of the Billy Collins poem "Introduction to Poetry" (with which he kicked off his wonderful Poetry 180 project for High School students), which is all about giving a poem time and space to breathe in your imagination, and not interrogating it to death with "rubber hoses." Hearing Collins' hilarious description of the poor poem being given the third degree, the poetry-shy-graduate-to-be cracked a smile. Maybe, he conceded, poetry wasn't such a drag after all.

Posted on Thu, January 7, 2010 by Robert Cremins

« Go Back

No comments (Add your own)

Add a New Comment

Your Name:

Your Email/URL (Optional):

Your Comment:

Enter the code you see below:
code

Comment Guidelines: No HTML is allowed. Off-topic or inappropriate comments will be edited or deleted. Thanks.