I ache for people who approach poetry like a root canal with torturous fear. They may have experienced the English class torture chamber Mr. Collins described for us; holding the poems of dead, white, men hostage. There may have been a sprinkling of Whitman and Dickinson. But the experience sucked the joy out of their marrow...crippling their poetic souls. That school experience is enough to cause some to run with they hear the word poetry later in life as if there were a swarm of killer bees after them. I hope that in this High School Poetry class we can reexamine poetry and learn to love it. Just as we love other things like music and food; we don't all love the same types, but for each of us there is something we like. To the average person, poetry conjures images of archaic rhyming couplets, Shakespeare, beatniks snapping their fingers, diaries full of feelings, and a horde of other stereotypes. Like all stereotypes, it only shows a few aspects and not the multi-facets of poetry. You could say that those people who run, suffer from Metrophobia, the fear of poetry. Ideally, poetry is everything, and that most certainly includes humor, love and modern relevancy. All those people who pass poetry off as elitist and esoteric work of dead white men are happy to create their self-fulfilling prophecies, limiting themselves and missing out on gems. I hope that each of you will not fall prey to Metrophobia so you don't miss out on great poems like these gems by Maya Angelou:
Alone
by Maya Angelou
Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Watch and read the poems by Maya Angelou. In this post write a response paragraph or poem to one of Angelou's poems. Tell my what you think?
P.S. Do you suffer from any Metrophobia?
