Day #245: Becoming a Poetry Nerd

So to continue on my story from last night, you will note that I did not in fact become an English major....although, funny story, my LAST quarter of my undergrad career I took a random English class to get the 4 more credits...in something...that I needed to graduate and with four weeks to go in the class the professor said I had a real ear for literature and should become an English major. I think I said, um, that's super nice of you but I'm graduating in a month.

So I have never in my life taken a college level course in poetry. In fact, I have never in my life taken a class of any kind in poetry. I know we read Shakespeare in high school and I took a Native American Literature class in college (this may have been during my "take a class in everything, major in something" quarter and we read some poetry as well as short stories and essays. But what I knew about poetry as a random college graduate was...well, about what most people know about poetry.

Except then I became a librarian and thought I had to fake it.

Somehow, in my early days in library work, I felt like I had to pretend to be interested in poetry. Looking back, I'm not entirely sure why. Librarians, outside of murder mystery books, tend not to be the spinster Emily Dickinson loving creatures they are portrayed as being, but I was young and I think I thought I had to be impressive. Plus, someone created an entire month for poetry, National Poetry Month in April, and when you're the person who's responsible for bulletin boards and displays and storytime themes having that built right in is super handy.

Before I started working in libraries, it was, in fact, my sister who introduced me to Naomi Shihab Nye, who is still one of my favorite poets. But I met her through an essay collection she wrote called Never in a Hurry. That book is actually why I still don't subscribe to the "I need an e-reader so I can travel and carry my books" theory. I am not against ebooks if that's your jam, but they are not me, and in the era before ebooks I carried that book in my backpack through New Zealand for 6 months because I was unwilling to let it go. And now my motto is, if it has earned the space it takes to carry it, that book has earned a place in your life, if not, read it and ditch it in the airport/hotel lobby/bus station/ wherever. This is still how I manage books while I travel.

Anyway, Nye writes for all ages but she has a lot of kids poetry and since I knew her name and then went and found her books in the library in which I worked, it was kind of a revelation. Hey, kids' poetry! That isn't funny! Now, there's nothing on earth wrong with Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky, but not all poetry has to be the same, and that's kind of what we tend to teach kids: poetry rhymes and is funny. Unless you are counting syllables, then it's haiku. And then they get to high school and we make them read Shakespeare and clap their hands to iambs. And we wonder why no one thinks they understand poetry or are smart enough for it.

So, anyway, in early library jobs, I made it a point to push poetry in April and kind of earned the moniker of being the resident poetry nut, but it wasn't real. I didn't write it. I didn't even really read it, except to occasionally find the right poem to share in a storytime. I remember a colleague going on and on about how much she loved Billy Collins and I had no earthly idea who that was. I remember subscribing to the Writers' Almanac podcast and just having episodes sit in my iPod (those were the days) unplayed because I really didn't want to fill my head with 5 minutes at a time of poetry.

And then I bought a book edited by Nye called "Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25."

This book is over 15 years old now...I still have it somewhere...so I'm sure the poets in it are in their mid lives in terms of poetry now, but for me at that time it was a revelation. Young poets, many of them younger than me, writing in all kinds of meter or even free verse...the diversity of voices and how great it sounded really impressed me.

That's when I realized...I really like more modern poetry. Nothing wrong with Shakespeare, the classics are always good, and I just finally read an Emily Dickinson collection, she can play, but I love the diversity of voices in American poetry today. And I started listening to some of the poets do their poetry spoken word on YouTube...and it was a different world. My boss at one of the libraries I worked at threw a poetry slam and it actually worked in this small town quirky hippie library community and I got paid to work it so I actually got to see a poetry contest and it was really fun. And then I got a job at a library system that had this HUGE annual poetry contest for teenagers...like entry forms were distributed to every secondary school in the county and they'd get hundreds of entrants and a guest judge, the whole bit. Entries were pre-screened by volunteer judges who were library staff and I was one of them, and seeing what these kids could come up with...it was amazing.

So you can see, it wasn't this light bulb moment...like I didn't just go from someone who had had 2 college level English classes in her life to a huge poetry nerd all at once...but over time it just kept finding me. 

Throwing my own first poetry event was humbling. I patterned it after my old boss's poetry slam, but she had been doing that for a long time and had the backing of a writers' association. I was just me and getting people to give up time on a weeknight to come read their poetry was a tough sell. I dubbed it a Poetry Coffeehouse and the way I advertised it was as a Poetry Coffeehouse, so my guerilla marketing strategy was to write "poetic" words in Sharpie on 3x5 cards (you know: pontificate, mesmerize, eccentricity...whatever weird words I could think of, like little one word poems) and staple a coffee flavored candy in the corner with the event information printed at the bottom of the card. So in theory people had the word catch their eye, took the thing for the candy, and then had program information.

We had eleven people there, seven who didn't work at the library and seven people total read poems. I declared it a smash success and I almost forgot to provide coffee.

In other words, I was now the librarian poetry evangelist, but poetry was still a hard sell.

And then I got a job as a school librarian. Two words: captive audience. 

I got to write the curriculum...no...wait a minute...let me start again.

I was required and without much direction given to write a curriculum for library, research and study skills instruction for grades 1-8. And I thought...you know what...there is *always* spring break in April, so every class gets 3 library lessons in April...damn it, for three weeks out of the year, we are gonna mess around with poetry.

And those kids inspired the heck out of me.

First of all...we WAYYYY underestimate what kids can understand. I read Gertrude Stein to 3rd graders. I read Pablo Neruda to 4th graders. Picture book biographies of poets can be AWESOME doorways to share their work with kids. I read Langston Hughes to 5th graders. I had first graders writing concrete poems. I had 6th graders writing found poems using Google search results (something I still want to feature in a novel in verse I'm thinking of writing.) Speaking of which, I had never in my life heard of a novel in verse until I was a school librarian and then I started reading them aloud and sharing them with kids...what an absolutely phenomenal way to get poetry into kids' lives. Poetry now is far more accessible for kids and grownups than it was even 15 years ago when I was in early library jobs. We still have a long way to go, but books like The Poet X are making people realize what they know of as poetry and what actually is poetry...is not the same. Poets have a huge reach via YouTube and social media to show you what they really do...no, we still don't pay them enough or have enough visibility of the diversity of this art form, but it gets better...little by little it gets better. 

By far my favorite day of April was always Poem in Your Pocket Day. I would encourage the kids to carry a poem in their pocket...one they had written or one someone else wrote, to take out and share with as many people as possible over the course of the day. I loved the day one of my 8th graders started writing a poem in leftover yogurt on the playground. I adored the 7th grader's two line "Failure to Write a Poem"...I wish I had asked for her permission to keep it because I don't remember it and it was gorgeous. We got poetry included as part of the school's ArtsFest in early May. I got a school full of kids who weren't much into reading...talking about poetry. It was kind of amazing.

And somewhere in that process I started actually writing some poetry of my own...just a little bit at first...more now...and I need to make next steps from there, but that's my journey.

Advice I give to people who don't know where to start with poetry: don't assume you have to understand what you are reading. We who have been taught the way that I was go into poetry thinking we have to analyze it. You don't. You CAN, and there will be lots to think and reflect on, but start by just reading. Read poets you like, and then read poets they say they like. If you don't like one, try another. Look for performance poetry, either on YouTube or in live events once those are a thing again. Hearing poets read their own work is really helpful in getting the rhythm and the feel of it. Don't try to read a poetry book like a novel. Just read a poem or two at a time. Keep the book in the bathroom. Don't stress it. It doesn't have to be English 101. 

Try some novels in verse. A few I'd start with: The Poet X, Brown Girl Dreaming, Other Words for Home, Inside Out & Back Again. For some reason these are huge in the middle grade and young adult world and haven't really crossed into mainstream adult publishing yet. I predict that, like most things cool, they soon will. It's hilarious because I've been trying to write these lately and when I talk about them in writers circles people always freak out and think I've invented something totally new, whereas people in the YA and kidlit book worlds, say, oh, yeah, what are your favorites? It's just funny. 

I've mentioned some of my favorite poets, but I'll throw a few names here. Naomi Shihab Nye. Mary Oliver. Nikki Giovanni. Current Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. Elizabeth Acevedo. Langston Hughes. William Carlos Williams. ee cummings. Marilyn Nelson. Also, don't be afraid to try kids' books to explore poets. Kwame Alexander's Out of Wonder is a great place to start. Just...dip your toe in. There's a world out there that I discovered once. I like sharing it. 

Now I gotta keep working on that journey...not towards poet, we already decided I was going to claim that, but towards next steps in reading, writing, and perhaps more importantly sharing poetry. Wish I knew what those looked like.

Media consumption: slow today. Today I just felt like molassess all day. I'm still reading a middle grade graphic novel and I couldn't finish it. But I was glad to have it along. Watching How I Met Your Mother, which has maybe replaced Friends for my all time brainless zone out show. So that shows you where I am.

Today I'm grateful for: writing with James, lunch out, that I have pie crust dough in the fridge and can go make pie crust cookies, that my best friend is coming tomorrow to save me from solo parenting, that we are all healthy and safe, and that it looks like we will have a favorable election result soon, fingers crossed.