You don’t actually hate poetry (the school system just failed you)

From observing my fellow peers, teachers, and just the general populace, I have noticed a certain disdain veering on guttural utterance at the mere mention of a poetry unit or assigned poetry reading. As an advocate for the poetic literary form and aspiring English educator, this trend saddens me in that the fact that the mention of one of my most prolific passions dubs me as some sort of elitist.

I would argue that this contempt for poetry is not due to the form itself, but as a result of the “one-size-fits-all” model grade school educators are often encouraged to use for poetry. This unfortunately taints the poetry pool in the minds of students because they feel a rigidity and lack of passion in many poetry lessons. These practices are a very serious disservice to poetry. Here, I will make the argument that it is not poetry as a whole that you hate; rather, it is the focus on “canonical” poets, romantic era writing, and the pigeon-holding of interpretability of grade-school level poetic education that elicits this knee-jerk hatred. 

One of the most prolific disservices is the fact that poetry has as many genres as any other form of art. This is a point that I think is missing from the conversion about literature in general, but especially in considering poetry. Poetry is often divided into movements, in the way painting typically is. While I think this context is important, especially when the visual aspects of poetry come into play, it can make poetry seem very linear and like one large conglomerate. Upon further exploration though, I am sure everyone could find a style of poetry that appeals to them, if Shakespeare, Plath, Dickinson, Hughes, Silverstein, or Wordsworth aren’t doing it for them.

It is educators’ duty, to some extent, to present a plethora of samplings from all kinds of genres to increase the likelihood a student finds a poet, poem, or style of writing that appeals to them. Through this, students can see for themselves that poetry can be satirical, confessional, stream-of-conscious, narrative, character-based, and so much more. 

The language we use when talking about poetry is also an aspect which I feel can alienate the student from the medium. While it is important to teach subject-specific-vocabulary, (stanza, line, enjambment, metaphor, personification, etc.) the goal of this teaching should be to empower students by giving them the words to express the thoughts they already have about the writing in language that computes to them—aided by this vocabulary master list, not succumbed to it. 

The inherently custom quality of poetry in terms of visual, sonic, and literary qualities has this wonderfully complex ability to make poetry all the more personal and approachable, giving the reader the ability to see meaning in whatever they feel drawn to imbue. The freedom afforded by poetry, however, often seems to be discouraged by the grade-school system. Even in such subjective and discussion-based conversations, the concern when teaching seems to be surrounded by conversation of testable points. 

This perspective has removed the je ne sais quoi from the teaching and learning of poetry by prioritizing a memorization and conformist structure. This ignores one of the primary objectives of English and other humanities courses: giving students the tools to critically assess the world around them, know how to pick it apart, and then how to support their side in conversation with the other perspectives. If we harken on one perspective or one interpretation, we are failing student bodies as a whole, and the disservice done to poetry is an avenue in which the problems with the test-focused education system are especially prevalent.