Poetry Craft Lesson:

Into Poetry

What Is Poetry?
Works:
“The Eagle” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
“ArsPoetica” by Archibald MacLeish
“10 Definitions of Poetry” by Carl Sandburg
“Poetry Should Ride the Bus” by Ruth Forman
“Introduction to Poetry” by Billy Collins
Purpose
This lesson plan can be used toward the beginning of the school year, after students
have had some close encounters of the intriguing kind with new (to them) poetry but
before the introduction of much technical language or literary terminology. The goal
is to have students think generatively about the nature of poetry – what makes a
poem a poem; what distinguishes poetry from prose? Why does this form of
literature occupy such a revered place in the cultural landscape? In this lesson,
students will be invited to come up with original answers to these fundamental
questions in a constructivist fashion, that is, by experiencing writing their own poem
fragment about poetry.
Procedure
Step One: Put on the overhead and read aloud to the class “The Eagle” by Alfred,
Lord Tennyson.
(Of course, you are welcome to use whatever short text you prefer to start this
lesson; it works best, however, if you choose one that has at least some of the
obvious hallmarks of what is generally considered poetry.)
Ask students, “Is this a poem or not? And what makes you think so?” Keep
track of the main points of the discussion that ensues on the dry-erase board.
[Reasons for ‘yes’ for this particular text might include, because it rhymes; is written
in a regular rhythm (iambic tetrameter); personifies the sea in an original way
(“wrinkled…crawls.”); has a simile; has alliteration and assonance; has a semi-exotic
word choice (“azure world”); inverts the usual English word order in places (line six);
or, because it expresses an overall consistent attitude of awesome dignity toward the
eagle.] [Reasons for ‘no’ might include that this is a fragment; Tennyson never found
what he considered a satisfactory home for it in his lifetime.]

Step Two: Put up on the overhead a definition of “poetry” from the Oxford
Companion to the English Language, Dictionary of Literary Terms:

“Poetry is …writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of

experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response
from the reader through meaning, sound and rhythm.”

Quickly help students make the connection between their language and the formal
dictionary definition. Complement them on their perceptiveness.
Poetry Craft Lesson:
Into Poetry
Step Three: Put up on the overhead Carl Sandburg’s “Ten Definitions of Poetry”.
Explain a little about Sandburg’s life and literary reputation – early 20th century Mid-
west American populist, auto-didact, biographer of Lincoln, etc. Have students take
turns reading each of Sandburg’s alternative definitions. Ask: do these even make
sense? What do they mean? You might look at a few of them and attempt
interpretations. Eventually, however, you want to address the collective impact of all
ten. (In other words, do they create “a specific emotional response” towards the idea
of “poetry”, to paraphrase the Oxford dictionary definition? If so, what attitude are
they fostering?)

Hopefully, students will see that Sandburg is aiming at evoking in the reader a sense
of admiration for poetry for its vitality and courageous attempt at expressing the
ineffable.

Step Four: Invite students to write their own Sandburgian definition of poetry – an
11th one in the same surreal, imaginative vein as the original ten. Give students
three to five minutes to accomplish this task. Have them partner share what they
come up with, then ask for volunteers to read their creations to the whole class.
Celebrate the many fresh and creative solutions students come up with for this
assignment.

Step Five: Ask the class which “definition” of poetry they find more satisfying and
accurate – the dictionary version or Sandburg’s? Which would be more fun to
illustrate? (If this is a block class, you might ask students to do a visual
rendering/poster of their favorite Sandburg Poetry definition or, if they prefer, of their
own.)

At the end of the lesson, emphasize the point that poetry implies a qualitatively
distinct – more carefully crafted, more emotionally loaded, more original and inspired
-- use of language than prose. If we are set apart from other species on this planet by
our sophisticated use of language, reading poetry engages us in exercising our most
quintessentially human capacities.

Assignment / Connection
Follow-up: For homework, (or for the next class), have students read Archibald
MacLeish’s “ArsPoetica” and compare it to Sandburg’s “Ten Definitions of Poetry.”
What differences do students note? (Among other things, MacLeish’s version
contains a careful balance of both directly didactic elements about poetry, a la a
dictionary definition, as well as symbolic meaning, a la Sandburg. In that sense,
MacLeish’s poem is gloriously self-contradictory: a poem should be “mute”, “dumb”
and “wordless,” it says. But this poem is clearly made out of words, as all poems
must be. Ultimately, however, aren’t these two modern poems saying essentially the
same thing about poetry – that some truths can be expressed only as dynamic
tensions between opposing forces – and that we look to poetry to accomplish that
feat?
Poetry Craft Lesson:
Into Poetry