Language Arts Journal of Michigan Volume 11 Issue 1 Focus: Poetry, Tough to Tach or a Treat for Article 16 Students? 1995 Poetry as a Subversive Literature Peter Butts Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/lajm Recommended Citation Butts, eP ter (1995) "Poetry as a Subversive Literature," Language Arts Journal of Michigan: Vol. 11: Iss. 1, Article 16. Available at: https://doi.org/10.9707/2168-149X.1559 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@GVSU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Language Arts Journal of Michigan by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@GVSU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. From the Stacks Peter Butts Poetry as a Subversive Literature s an impressionable 10thgrader. I experienced the strange pedagogyofa manwho A threw books. led the class in calisthenics when we were too qUiet. and often spun a large hunting knife to select the next student for his questions. In the process. we learned a lot about the Elizabethan love poets and 17th Century metaphysical poets. We all thought we were getting away with murder talking about such stuffin class, my first lessoninthe subversivepowerofpoetry. Figuringout what the elaboratemetaphors really meant became a game. My second lesson came as a floundering first­ brave enough to let students create their own year teacher in inner-city Cleveland. Totally dis­ notebooks ofpoetry they've written themselves or gusted with the textbook (and myself. for that that they've found browsing the library media matter). I puttogethera copyright-suspect collec­ centershelves. They've forced me to go beyondthe tion of poems by Amiri Baraka. Nikki Giovanni, standard anthologies and seek out books with 'Maya Angelou. Gwendolyn Brooks. Audre Lorde. shelfappeal for young adults. Here are a handful and others for Black History Month. Subcon­ of recent gems too good to miss. sciously. I think I wanted to tick off the lethargic My budding Romeos can now do better than administration. I didn't succeed in getting fired. the pages ofTeen magazine with a new collection but I did get swamped with requests from kids for bypoetand educationalconsultantRalph Fletcher. copies ofthat "ba-ad" poetry. If it's relevant. they I Am Wings: Poems About Love (Bradbury,1994). will come. (A bit of scatological language doesn't Browsing through this slim volume of short. hurt. either.) unassuming verse can reveal humor. heartache, Lesson number three came in my current or tendemess- incarnation as a middle school library media BAsKET specialist. Intrigued by the steady. surreptitious We walk stream ofyoung men sitting down to quick peeks holdIng hands atTeen magazine. I deCided to investigate. Sneak­ our fingers ing my own peek over a shoulder one day. I woven together discovered that. contrary to my hypothesis that hanging between us they were reading the advice columns that fre­ like a basket quentlydiscussed sex. they were actuallyflipping soft but strong and snugly knit to that dreadful adolescent poetry in the back. In with room enough fact, quickly scribbled notes suggested they were for love to fit stealing lines for their own love notes. If it's relevant. and useful, they will come. Divided into two sections-"falling in" and I've also been fortunate enough to work with "fallingout"-myearlyreaders have most enjoyed some creative middle school English teachers the fickle and tragiC poems ofthe second half. The Spring 1995 69 author is also father offour boys, so he knows the welcome territory. whoever enters it to do business. For young adults, poetry can be found on the radio and by tuning in M1V. The most distinct new verse form they find is the hip hop meter of Every EyeAin'tAsleep:AnAnthology ofPoetry rap music. For a taste of rap by a young up-and­ By African Americans Since 1945 (Little, Brown. coming poet, look for Paul Beatty's Joker, Joker, 1994) brings together the literary children of Deuce (Penguin, 1994). Although Beatty tends Langston Hughes, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and toward longer verse than is commonly found in Countee Cullen. The editors, Michael S. Harper YA (young adult) anthologies, his peculiar mix of and AnthonyWalton, set outto explore the diver­ philosophical jive and in-your-facerap has proved sity of Mrican American verse from classically popular. inspired writing to the radical Black Arts Move­ VERBAL MUGGlNG ment works that so motivated my Cleveland kids. Rather than try to crystallize Mrican American poetry into a single definition, they've sought out i end this oral tome the varied responses to Countee Cullen's puzzle: drenched in sweat wiping away the crocodile tears Yet do I marvel at the curious thing: To make a poet black and bid him sing. of happy endings in a make believe world Along with solid helpings of Robert Hayden, where people speed listen and skim Gwendolyn Brooks, poet laureate Rita Dove, and other expected folk, are kid-pleasers dedicated to the poet goes round makin ends meet Muhammad Ali and Rodney King. Here's a by beatin muthafuckas over the head with "teacher-pleaser": a bitter and stunning homage sound to Wallace Stevens by Raymond Patterson- bangin tuning forks on minds TwENrY·Sa WAYS OF LooKING AT A BLAC.KM'AN lookin for vibrations that dont stop with time Keeping up with contemporary poetry can be On the road we met a blackman. challenging; two new (inexpensive) anthologies But no one else. can help. Walk on the Wild Side: UrbanAmerican XII Poetry Since 1975 (Collier, 1994) brings together We are told that the seeds 60 poets, arranged alphabetically by poet, to of rainbows are not unlike create a rich portrait of diverse cultures and a blackman's tear. cities. Representing Detroit, Lebanese-American LawrenceJosephwritesabout his parents' neigh­ XVIII borhood market- Is it harvest time in the brown fields, Or is it a black man Tm:RE 1 AM AGAIN Singing? I see it again at dusk, half darkness in its brown light, XIX There is the sorrow of blackmen large tenements with pillars on Hendrie be­ Lost in cities. But who can conceive side it. Of cities lost in blackmen? the gas station and garage on John R beside it. sounds of acappella from a window some­ Growing up Latino in America means speak­ where, pure, nearby it ing two languages; Lori Carlson's Cool Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Growing Up Latino in the pouring through the smell of fried pork to United States (Holt, 1994) explores the rhythms. 70 Language Arts Journal of Michigan sounds, andexperiences of thatdoublelife. Sandra produce Here Is My Kingdom: Hispanic-American Cisneros, Gary Soto, Luis Rodriguez, Oscar LiteratureandArtforYoung People (Abrams, 1994). Hijuelos, and others contribute growing-up expe­ The mostintriguingtwiston this themecomes riences written in both English and Spanish. from the ever prolific Cynthia Rylant who has Each poem includes a translation, but many. penned a series of haunting. wistful, and earthy suchasAbelardoB. Delgado's "Dia delos muertos," lyrics to accompany the Depression-Era photog­ are in the mixoflanguages ourkids use everyday. raphy ofWalker Evans entitled Something Perma­ nent (Harcourt. Brace, 1994). Of course just reading poetry is as ludicrous Here in the U.S. as studying music merely by listening to records los muertos are personas non gratas. without attemptingto sing; appreciation ofpoetry Here we do not wish also comes from writing poetry. Both poetry fans to hold dialogue and poetry-phobes will enjoy these wonderful with los muertos. new guides. Mary Oliver may just have become They remind us the E. B. White ofverse with A Poetry Handbook we too (Harcourt, Brace, 1994). Sound, meter. diction, will eventually join them. Here there is no luto imagery, a generous helping of common sense, and there are no novenas and a dash of wit are served up in a small volume or pu§os de tierra. appropriate for both student reading and class­ Here in the U.S. room preparation. As an added treat. Oliver skill­ the idea is to hide, fully illustrates her pOints with some ofthe finest to ignore the dead examples of American poetry. Writing a poem, and to even avoid death in our conversations. says Oliver, "is a kind of love affair between something like the heart and the learned skills of the conscious mind. They make appointments Poetry anthologies for children typically com­ with one another and keep them. and something bine verse and art; recently this practice has begins to happen~ (7). taken some exciting and sophisticated turns. Designed with a younger audience in mind. Lastyear, Tom Feelingswon both Caldecott Hon­ Paul Janeczko's Poetry From A to Z: A Guidefor ors and a CorettaScott King Medal for SoulLooks Young Writers (Bradbury Press,1994) is a smor­ BackinWonder(Dial, 1993). Thisgorgeous album gasbord, combining seventy-two fun poems ar­ of colorful paintings and poetic celebrations is ranged alphabetically bysubject (because, writes just too good not to share with older readers. The Janeczko. "you can write a poem about almost same can be said of the simple. defiant affirma­ anything" (4), fourteen poetic exercises. and tion ofMayaAngelou's LifeDoesn'tFrighten Me at thoughts and advice from the poets. Poetry From All (Stewart. Tabori. & Chang, 1993) illustrated A to Z is a wonderful antidote for students (and with thedramaticgraffitipaintingsofJean-Michel teachers) who've had the "Anastasia Kntpnik Basquiat. My tough middle schoolersgetan inter­ experience" with a rigid teacher who insists on esting look on their faces as they read the tragic following "the rules." bio in the back of the book concluding with I saved Janeczko's latest volume of his own Basquiat's death due to a drug overdose. work for last because it contains a poem that A prominent proponent of the paintings and perfectly captures thejoy ofreading good poetry.