Recently on Brave Learning…
Poetry Teatime [Public]
A simple idea with big implications
For as long as I can remember, adults and kids routinely confess a fear of poetry. They say, “Oh I hate poetry. It’s too difficult to understand.” In truth, most people assume they must do something with poetry—analyze it, make meaning from it, find its themes and imagery, identify its rhyme schemes. The provocative rhythms and sometimes old world vocabulary act as barriers to enjoyment, too, for so many smart, successful, fluent adults!Subscribed
Yet somehow I managed to develop a love of poetry from an early age. My grandfather gave me a book of poems to read aloud when I was seven years old. I still have it. I played with words and wrote my own poems on scratch paper and in my diary. Poetry felt like puzzles, riddles, inside jokes, and bursts of music to me. I didn’t worry too much about “getting” it.
When my children were coming along every two years, I hoped to pass my enjoyment of poetry to them. Yet the culture of anxiety around poetry was so strong, I worried they would resist or declare, “I don’t get it!” [More]
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