For Poem in Your Pocket Day
2016, I decided to cart around Marilyn Nelson’s “How I Discovered Poetry.” I
had read it before, most recently in the collection Poetry Speaks Who I Am, edited by Elise Paschen, and had even
dog-eared it.
“How I Discovered Poetry”
It was like
soul-kissing, the way the words
filled my mouth as
Mrs. Purdy read from her desk.
All the other kids
zoned an hour ahead to 3:15,
but Mrs. Purdy and
I wandered lonely as clouds borne
by a breeze off
Mount Parnassus. She must have seen
the darkest eyes in
the room brim: The next day
she gave me a poem
she’d chosen especially for me
to read to the all
except for me white class.
She smiled when she
told me to read it, smiled harder,
said oh yes I
could. She smiled harder and harder
until I stood and
opened my mouth to banjo playing
darkies,
pickaninnies, disses and dats. When I finished
my classmates
stared at the floor. We walked silent
to the buses, awed
by the power of words.
When I picked it up again yesterday,
it sent me spinning back into the recesses of my disorganized mind to ascertain
when I first discovered poetry.
I remembered copying cheesy
four-to-eight line poems from the board in Mrs. Latch’s 1st grade
classroom, stapling them into a crude Crayola-illustrated compilation of
handwriting paper to give to my mother. I have no idea what they were or where
they went—probably a landfill somewhere in Arkansas for all I know.
I remembered that throughout
elementary school I thought poems were easy to read, but not much more than that.
I remembered cracking up (out loud) when Ms.
Ortiz read “The Cremation of Sam McGee” in 7th grade, not because of
the content, although it was a bit funny despite the darkness of the material,
but because I began to relish the language…and I knew what made it such a great
poem. Owl-eyed Ms. Ortiz was not amused, as she was trying to establish the
setting, front-loading for us reading Call of the Wild.
I unsuccessfully tried my hand at writing song lyrics—mostly
ballads—in 9th grade but became fascinated by rap lyrics and rhythms,
although I never tried writing any of those until 11th grade.
I think it might have been in 10th
grade, though, in Mr. Albert’s class that maybe I really discovered poetry. He's the one who had us listen to Vincent Price perform Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" (on vinyl) with the lights off.
I
remember having to explicate a simple poem about a dog. I believe it was simply
called “The Dog,” but I am not quite sure. I’ve tried looking for it since
then, but my searches have been fruitless. I remembering it having four short,
simple quatrains, and the dog was coming toward the speaker, but that’s all I
can recall. If anyone out there can help, I’d appreciate it. I don’t think it
was a super-impressive piece of literature—maybe even contrived for a clueless
high school student to practice with; I’m not sure. But I do know that once I
saw the multiple layers that went into the simplicity of the poem—the language,
the complexity of the meaning, and how it impacted the people around me, I was
hooked. Then again, I had always loved language and words; they were magic from
the time I started identifying letters. And when I found out how summary,
emotional connections, symbolism, form, figurative language, repetition, theme,
and all the other nuances of Meaning blended together on the playground of
human experience, of course I wanted to play with poetry, too.
We started writing poetry:
acrostics, haiku, cinquain, limericks, and many other vomitus forms that drive
me bonkers today—pieces I have sworn I would never compel students to write,
although it seems that most of their poetry exposure consists strictly of these
and other fill-in-the-cheesy blank poems and Shel Silverstein. But I digress. I
found that I was good at writing poetry, especially using this thing called
free verse. However, I thought that great poetry had to fit rhyme and meter,
and so I dabbled in that, and I ended up forcing rhymes, slanting others worse
than bad puns. It wasn’t until I learned to let go that anything amazing
happened, though. One of my poems that I wrote for Mr. Albert’s class was
published in a British literary magazine (and, no I don’t remember the title of
the periodical either). The poem was “Subway,” which I later published in the
school newspaper as a junior.
For a time, if you looked at my
earlier attempts at poetic drivel, you can interpret my life and its ups and
downs, kind of like a teenage journal: rollercoastering mood swings, school
misery, confusing relationships of all kinds, and flat, pretentious blather masquerading
in philosophical sheep’s clothing. My vocabulary needed a definite smack down,
or at least refined pruning. I remember writing a poem in 12th grade
because I learned the word ostentatious.
I did another with gregarious. (I
still like mixing my metaphors, though; it’s fun.)
Since that semi-angsty time in
my life, I am happy to report that I think I have improved. Browse this blog;
find the poetry label on the right-hand side bar to get started, and see if I have. Some of my earliest posts reveal some
of the dross from the past. So, with this ramble about how I found poetry,
enjoy the rest of Poem in Your Pocket Day! I’d love for you to share yours.
