The Article

In this article, Assistant Professor Laura Apol outlines seven suggestions that can help both teacher and student loose the common fear of writing poetry and gain creative writing skills. From her experiences teaching and writing poetry, conducting writing workshops and judging poetry contests, Apol has developed methods to help writers and teachers go beyond limericks, formula poems, and Haiku.

Discussion

Apol makes the point that to be effective teachers of poetry, teachers must also be writers of poetry themselves. Apol then outlines seven suggestions to help teachers in their writing and teaching of poetry.  Apol’s first step is for writers to be active readers of poetry, paying attention to the ways words work and writers create. She explains that it is not only important to read poets that speak to us personally, but also to read poets who puzzle and challenge us. Apol’s second suggestion is to think of creative writing as traveling without a map, or driving a car at night. These metaphors illustrate that writing is seldom a linear process with a known destination. Instead, it involves learning to love language—its tastes and shapes and sounds—and then to go wherever the writing leads. The third suggestion is to practice writing often, as you would if learning to play the piano or shooting free throws. Instead of expecting a “great” poem every time you write, Apol says to write in a way that feels “raw and messy.” Her fourth suggestion is find ways to ground poetic emotions in concrete objects and details that can be seen, touched and tasted by readers and listeners. In one class, Apol brought objects like a teddy bear, baseball mitt and bottle of perfume for her students to write about. She was amazed by the difference it made in their poetry. In Apol's fifth tip, she tells writers that it's okay to blur the truth and embellish a story or experience in order to tell a larger Truth—something that resonates with the human experience. The sixth tip deals with the subject of revision, and Apol advises new poets to think of revising as they would think of the process of making an elephant out of a hunk of marble—that is, to think of how a sculptor chips away everything that isn’t elephant, and, in their writing, to get rid of anything that doesn’t belong in the poem. She explains that sometimes the images or words that helped launch a poem are no longer needed when the poem is completed. Finally, for those concerned with “finding” their voice, Apol suggests “growing” a voice instead—a voice that grows strongest with practice, until the words begin to have the right “feel” of the poet about them.

What It Means To You

Many English teachers that Apol has worked with have confessed that they dislike and even fear teaching poetry.  As a result, they often cling to form poems and uninspired poetry guides. Bewildered, they ask, “What do we do if we don’t do Haiku?” Apol’s answer is to "explore the rich and wide world of poetry in a way that allows us as writers—and teachers of writing—to grow voices ... one poem, one line, one image at a time.”

For More Information

Apol, L. (2002).“What do we do it we don?t do Haiku?” Seven suggestions for writers and teachers. English Journal, 91(3), 89-97.

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