Remembering Poetry

I belong to the Crawford County Bombadils, a poetry group. I have never met any of the poets, but the president keeps everyone looped together by email. She gives us a writing assignment every month or two and then we share our work. This month she said to try recalling a very early experience you had of reading or hearing language that interested or excited or confused or enlightened you.  Then we were to write about it, not necessarily poetry.

 

 

                                                                 Erie Grade School

 

This is mine:t, reading, multiplication tables, and this was the year for poetry. Mrs. Wells taught us about rhyme and how to set up line lengths on a page. She sharpened our awareness to things around us, made us attentive to the seasons. We were taught to keep a Poetry Notebook.

One whole segment of the wall length blackboard had permanent white lines like a piece of paper. Sometime near the first of each month, we had a poetry lesson. As a class we thought up a list of images that represented the month’s activities and then suggested sentences to make poems while teacher put those sentences up on the blackboard page. Together the teacher and class produced a nice poem about October’s red maple leaves or April’s sweet Easter Bunny. We were to copy the poem neatly on a page to put into a “folder” we had made ourselves of construction paper and paper brads.

Then sometime in the month we were to write a similar poem of our own and include it the folder. We decorated our folder, and we were encouraged to draw or color scenes on the poem page that depicted the poem. Mrs. Wells taught us some minor drawing too. Of course a summer tree was easy, two lines and a ballooning circle overhead, but a winter tree? She taught us how to draw stately oaks with limbs and branches free of leaves reaching skyward. I loved those trees! And to this day, if sitting with pencil and paper I find myself doodling one of the trees if I let my mind wander.

Any free time we could work on our poetry. Then occasionally Mrs. Wells collected the folders and read each page leaving encouraging comments or helpful ideas on the poetry pages. While we were too young for metaphors and similes, for alliteration, we learned appreciation and love of poetry first; the rest would come. She planted seeds that would become a love a language and a working knowledge about the power of words. The brick building might be gone, but the poetry we learned in the old brick halls stills sings loud and clear in our minds and hearts, the songs never-ending.

Recently in the name of progress, the two-storied, red brick school house was torn down in my Kansas hometown. I spent good years there, walked away with memories and lessons I remember still. One of the best years in that old school was the fourth grade, the last age group on the ground floor and taught by Phyllis Wells, who was a kind and genial woman, always.

I had wrestled through the alphabet, reading, multiplication tables, and this was the year for poetry. Mrs. Well taught us about rhyme and how to set up line lengths on a page. She sharpened our awareness to things around us, made us attentive to the seasons. We were taught to keep a Poetry Notebook.

One whole segment of the wall length blackboard had permanent white lines like a piece of paper. Sometime near the first of each month, we had a poetry lesson. As a class we thought up a list of images that represented the month’s activities and then suggested sentences to make poems while teacher put those sentences up on the blackboard page. Together the teacher and class produced a nice poem about October’s red maple leaves or April’s sweet Easter Bunny. We were to copy the poem neatly on a page to put into a “folder” we had made ourselves of construction paper and paper brads.

Then sometime in the month we were to write a similar poem of our own and include it the folder. We decorated our folder, and we were encouraged to draw or color scenes on the poem page that depicted the poem. Mrs. Well taught us some minor drawing too. Of course a summer tree was easy, two lines and a ballooning circle overhead, but a winter tree? She taught us how to draw stately oaks with limbs and branches free of leaves reaching skyward. I loved those trees! And to this day, if sitting with pencil and paper I find myself doodling one of the trees if I let my mind wander.

Any free time we could work on our poetry. Then occasionally Mrs. Wells collected the folders and read each page leaving encouraging comments or helpful ideas on the poetry pages. While we were too young for metaphors and similes, for alliteration, we learned appreciation and love of poetry first; the rest would come. She planted seeds that would become a love a language and a working knowledge about the power of words. The brick building might be gone, but the poetry we learned in the old brick halls stills sings loud and clear in our minds and hearts, the songs never-ending.