The missing "Why"

As I look over my previous post, I regret not explaining why assignments like the questions for "Terence" are important. My note comes off a bit like petty retaliation for getting the assignment wrong.

That's the wrong note to sound.

So…I'm going to try to explain here what I think you can get out of such assignments besides academic credit:

The blog is useful for posing question and trying out theories, and for general push and pull of opinion. That's one informal way to get into a poem and not be entirely alone in your interpretation.

The questions in Sound & Sense are usually quite good, and lead you to develop a comprehensive understanding of each poem and how it works to convey experience, meaning, music, and feeling. Human nature being what it is, you will skip these pesky questions unless we make them obligatory from time to time. You have to get down in the dirt sometimes and wrestle with the language to get a hold on what's in it.

We call that "working the poem." There's another expression, too: "unpacking the poem." It's best not to think about "solving" or "cracking" the poem, because good poetry does not yield its meaning in that way.

If you approach the analysis assignments conscientiously, I guarantee you that your mind will grow in its ability to cope with ambiguous and artful language. In fact, it will just plain grow.

The blog for such assignments is a sounding board for theories and a way to draw upon the varying perspectives of your classmates. That was the idea behind the "Terence" post. I expect and hope you will use it, but it will not be the main assignment when I ask you to type something and turn it in.

Our discussions in class provide the final synthesis of each poem as it makes its way into our consciousness. I consider them vital, and expect each of you to contribute. I'm going to keep more careful track during this unit of study to see how much you bring to those discussions. A blank expression is less than zero -- at any rate, it rates a zero for participation!

I think, and I hope you agree, that we all wish to use as much of our sophisticated but mysterious brains as we possibly can. Poetry can open up reservoirs of comprehension that you don't presently know you have.

And that goes for me, too! I used to duck poetry, until I had to teach it. Now I count poetry as the most valuable experience -- other than students -- of my teaching career.