Today at Greendown School, I met with some year 7 & 8 students to see what they thought about poetry. I was told that some were not sure about being involved in the 'Toothill Long Poem'. I decided that the best thing to do would be to share some great poems, to talk about them and to look at the ordinary world about us in many different ways.
They said...
A poem is a story.
It is passionative!
I like poetry, I like to write it (at home)
You can express your emotions.
Poems make you cry, they are sad.
and I said...
A poem can be a story...what stories do you have of Toothill? Does it have secrets, secret places?
'Passionative' is a fantastic 'made-up' word! I love it.
Would you like to write one at Toothill School? 600 lines +++
You can express your emotions, say important things or ordinary things, you can say a lot in a few lines.
Sometimes poems make me cry, but they also make me happy. I like it when they bring about an emotion, happy or sad.
HILDA'S WALK
I took this poem by Wallace Stevens out with me when I mapped out a word walk for the first 'Toothill Long Poem' . It reminded me to look at everything, to take note of each ordinary thing along the way. On Friday we will look for what has been left behind, what grows here, what can be seen (what can see us) and significant numbers to help us tell a story, say something special in a special way about Toothill.
How many ways can I see that lampost, that pair of swings, a lost shoe, and an aged bench?
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the black bird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
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