A Desk Full of Poetry

I am sitting at my desk on the first day of school, enjoying my first stretch of planning period time. I decided to print out the assignments for my next two days of classes, and when I was finished, I gave a great sigh and thought, “How good it is to be back.”

Nothing like a desk full of poetry!

It is a good time to reflect upon the value of poetry, as it is the way I begin each school year. After our initial meeting when we discuss how the class works, or first real lesson is always poetry.

This year, I will share the poems I’ve chosen for each grade level and give a little note as to why I think they are perfect—in general, and also for this purpose.

3rd Grade

The third graders will be studying “The Sun Has Long Been Set” by William Wordsworth. Its theme is much like many of Wordsworth’s other poems. That is to say, it is basically trying to ask the question, “How could anybody miss this beautiful scene?” I like this theme of Wordsworth’s, and the many and varied ways he communicates it. This particular poem is great for young children because its language is not too complicated, and the theme is accessible. These children have all seen a bit of nature they think is beautiful. It is not too much of a stretch to talk about someone thinking that beauty is positively unmissable. And, wouldn’t you know it, that’s exactly how I feel about the beautiful books we are going to read this year!

The sun has long been set,
The stars are out by two and threes,
The Little birds are piping yet
Among the bushes and trees;
There’s a cuckoo, and one or two thrushes,
And a far-off wind that rushes,
And a sound of water that gushes,
And the cuckoo’s sovereign cry
Fills all the hollow of the sky.
Who would “go parading”
In London, “and masquerading,”
On such a night of June
With that beautiful soft half-moon,
And all of these innocent blisses?
On such a night as this is!

There are many layers of meaning to peel back here, and with third graders, there is no way to peel them all. However, with a poem like this, I can start peeling and pay attention to the students, noticing how far they are able to go. They will all certainly understand the idea of the beauty of nature. They will probably get as far as the speaker’s wonder at the different values of people that he knows. Some of them may be ready to talk about the difference in value between “parading” and “masquerading” versus the “innocent blisses” of a summer evening in nature, but maybe not. No matter. They will understand it at its most essential level. And, importantly, this poem will act as a layer of paint. As the child grows older, as they are exposed to more poetry, the layers of paint will come together into a rich artwork of poetic understanding in this beautiful world.

4th Grade

The 4th grade students will have the great pleasure of being introduced to Yeats’s famous poem, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree.” Again, we see nature as a theme here. I like starting off with nature poems in the beginning of the year, since many of my students have just spent months being immersed in nature with their families. I like to think of nature poems as a bit of a bridge between the summer and the school year. I also just love them for their own sake. In “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” Yeats explores a slightly deeper theme than the one we see with Wordsworth—the idea of a place belonging to you to such an extent that you feel it in your soul, even when you are elsewhere. The 4th graders are usually ready to make it to that surprisingly deep layer of meaning. I know because “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” is my first go-to poem with 4th grade every year!

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the raodway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

5th Grade

5th grade students will be studying a lengthy excerpt from Alexander Pope’s challenging poem, “A little learning is a dangerous thing.” I have two reasons for choosing this poem for the first lesson this year, and they’re both kind of cute. First, the theme of the poem is the amazing, slightly daunting feeling of finding that there is always much more to learn than whatever you have already learned. I think that’s a great way to start off a new school year! But also, I like to do something sneaky in my classes, and this lesson is a good example of it. If there is a poem quoted in the text of a novel we are going to read, I will often teach that poem to the class in its entirety before we even start the book. I will not mention that it is going to show up later. I will just teach it for its own sake, and keep a little secret for a while. Then, when we inevitably read the book and come across the excerpt, the students light up like you wouldn’t believe. That familiarity and understanding makes them feel much closer to the story we are reading, and makes them love it all the more. And they also get the benefit of having another poem in their hearts. “A little learning is a dangerous thing” features in our first novel of the year, Anne of Green Gables.

I won’t include the entirety of the poem here, but rather an excerpt from our excerpt:

So pleased at first the towering Alps we try,
Mount o’er the vales, and seem to tread the sky,
The eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;
But, those attained, we tremble to survey
The growing labors of the lengthened way,
The increasing prospects tire our wandering eyes,
Hills peep o’er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

6th Grade

Another poem by William Butler Yeats makes this list, as it is another yearly go to for me. This will be my 3rd year of teaching “A Coat” to the 6th grade class as our first real lesson. I think it carries a theme that they are able to access at this age in a way that allows for true appreciation. If I were to share it with a younger group, they would probably “get it,” but not to the same degree.

I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world’s eyes
As though they’d wrought it.
Song, let them take it
For there’s more enterprise
In walking naked.

I’ve written about this poem in the Poetry Periodical. I love teaching it so much. What a pleasure to watch the students struggle and struggle with it, only to have a satisfying “a-ha” moment after a bit of discussion. Everything about it lends itself perfectly to what I’m doing with my junior high students. The significance of the metaphor, the irony of the fact that it is even a metaphor at all, and of course, the value of the theme itself—how art should just say what it is trying to say without trying to hide between useless ornamentation.

I also teach two poetry classes to the 7th and 8th grade, but I feel as though those lessons require their own write ups in a separate post. I will get to that someday. For now, I will just say…. Oh, it’s good to be back. How fortunate I am to have a desk full of poetry today.