Memorizing Poetry

A fellow children's literature blogger, Chicken Spaghetti, brought to my attention John Holt's essay Got Poetry? which appeared online in the April 2 New York Times Book Review.  The essay expounds on the benefits of memorizing poetry... from the point of a baby boomer.  I thoroughly enjoyed the article and felt encouraged about my secret sideline.  On the sly, I have been memorizing poetry for about ten years now.  It all started when I began teaching English at the French lycée where primary school students are required, in their French language classroom, to learn, memorize, and recite poetry on a regular basis. I'm talking 6- to 10- year old kids!  Every year, they began class with a new poetry cahier, and to my observation, they never question that poetry is part of their school work, just like math, or geography, or science. Even the requirement of reciting in front of their classmates doesn't seem to faze them. Memorizing poetry is just something they do.  For me, it was beginning teacher's luck, a gift handed to me on a silver platter, for it was quite an easy thing to transfer this poetic rigueur into their English class. And so, I included the memorizing of a poem per trimester during my first year of teaching, and ever since, it's been a poem a month.  The amazing and wonderful thing is that not only do the children do it almost effortlessly, they lap it up, they love it, and poetry time is a happy and relaxed time for them.  (And anyone who knows the French system of education knows that there's not much relaxing going on!) Refreshingly, no one speaks of how horrible it is to have children learn by rote!  The memorization frees them from the shackles of bad speech (and the incessant use of the word "like"), and the enjoyment that ensues has everyone feeling as pleased as punch.  

Mais revenons à nos moutons:  As my students memorized their monthly poems, I too would memorize the same one I was requiring them to learn, and was surprised at how utterly empowered  it made me feel.  From that point on, I began to learn poems on my own on a regular basis and I continue to this day. At first, I went out and bought Committed To Memory, 100 Best Poems to Memorize, edited by John Hollander, and just dove in!  Since then, I've continued to buy wonderful anthologies, but I've also branched out and bought books of individual poets. There is something absolutely wonderful about being able to declaim beautifully crafted words.  There is something absolutely invigorating  about making one's brain crunch the words before getting to the place where the words free themselves within the brain and you just run with it.  I am hooked.  I don't write poetry, but the discovery that I can memorize and enjoy it has been a wonderful new avenue of awareness for me.

And speaking of poetry for children:  Of course, my primary school students adore the poems of Shel Silverstein, Jack Prelutsky, Douglas Florian, Nikki Giovanni, and Bobbi Katz - that goes without saying.  But get this:  they also adore Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Walter de la Mare, Christina Rossetti, Ted Hughes, Ogden Nash, William Carlos Williams, Dorothy Parker, and Lewis Carroll - not too shabby, n'est-ce pas?

I recently came across Norman Shapiro's fabulous La Fontaine translations, The Complete Fables of Jean de la Fontaine. Because the fourth graders had already learned La Cigale et la fourmi in French, I took advantage of this opportunity to introduce the idea of the translation of great works of literature and I had them learn and memorize The Cricket and the Ant. It turned out to be a good bilingual project and one that got many of them thinking about interpreting not only words but meaning and pleasure. What a declamation there was the day we recited! Might we have some budding poets in our midst? Aspiring translators? Future interpreters? I can only hope so.  

March Madness

The month of March has flown by. When I think back and wonder what I have accomplished, nothing comes to mind. I had hoped to write a blogpost per week, but there you have it - my first one is on the last day of of the month! A busy end of the teaching trimester, a few translation projects taking up my out-of-school time, and the three stories I'm working that seem to be going nowhere in spite of continued efforts... and March is gone. Through it all, the tug of the writing life refuses to leave me! The good news is that I've had a companion during this crazy month, Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott, and this small volume has helped me get through what has turned out to be an uneven season. Introduced to me by Marlys Hershey - a woman I've yet to meet in the flesh - Bird by Bird is a meaty, chewy, main-course kind of book. It continues to nourish my soul and is proving to be truly inspirational with respect to the writing life. This book tastes good. Its smells earthy. It speaks volumes to me. It touches my spirit. It enlightens my obscurity and offers vision. A five-senses-kind-of-book! As I now read it for a second and third time, I am taking note of how I can implement some its lesson on life and writing.

The book is witty and real. It's gritty and down to earth. It's unsentimental and practical. Anne Lamott says over and over again that the writing life is a life of discipline, yet she encourages writers to be not so hard on themselves. OK, Anne, I'll try to follow that advice. Writers who feel discouraged? Well, that's alright: it's part of the human experience. This book has been my March experience - the end of winter and the beginning of spring - so I guess things haven't been so bad after all. Besides, tomorrow is the beginning of National Poetry Month, so things are definitely lookin' up!

Why I Love Teaching First Graders

Mouhamad is boisterous

Aglaé is sweet-tempered

Lily is as smart as a whip

Inès is endearing

Patrick has a voice to sing opera

Claudia is perspicacious

Santiago loves color

Brayden is coquin

Nayla is blissfully happy

Situ Coralie's the boss

Alexandra is playful

Cool Kenan takes it all in

Justin bright as a new penny

Colombe is as sweet as a dove

Eric sees everything and gets it

Alara?  She is Turkish delight

With sixteen students and twelve nationalities ranging from French to Turkish, from Mexican to Lebanese, from Belgian to American, from Spanish to Senegalese, from Togolese to Brazilian, and from Korean to Burundian, why wouldn't I love teaching first graders?  Well, there's always the bouquet of languages that I love, too.

I'll name a few:

French English Arabic Spanish

Fula Kirundi Korean Turkish

Did I mention that we also

Hear Portuguese and Togolese...

Do you still wonder 

Why I love teaching these?

Marblelous Marvels...

Marbles fascinate me. Although I was vaguely aware of their existence during my childhood and youth, it wasn't until I lived in France that I discovered how amazing they are.  There, marbles are significant both as objects that people collect and play with as well as vocabulary that colorfully and abundantly enriches the French language.  I observed with amusement when my three sons, without any guidance or input from their American mother, became interested in playing marbles, collecting marbles, trading marbles, and becoming marble experts by the time they trod up the hill to our neighborhood école.  I wondered what all the excitement and fuss were about until I took the time to discover that marbles embody a world of color, beauty, history, fun, and... language.

Two expressions using the word "marble" exist in English - think of "pick up one's marbles and go home," indicating that someone doesn't want to play or participate anymore, or "lose one's marbles," meaning that a poor soul is suffering from either a nervous breakdown or just can't think straight and has lost his or her bearings.  The French word for marble, bille, however, crops up in so many ways and so frequently, that expressions abound.  Let's start from the top:

bille en tête - head-on

avoir une bonne bille - have an honest face

faire une drôle de bille - look weird

bille de clown - have a funny face

bille de billard - bald

avoir les yeux plus ronds que des billes - naïf, even stupid, definitely clueless

Continue with intelligence or ability:

toucher sa bille - to be darn good at something, to know a thing or two about something

avoir des billes pour - to have some clues about something

Or on the contrary:

ne me prenez pas pour une bille - I'm not stupid!

And finally, in life and in love:

retirer ses billes - get out of the game, pull out

rendre ses billes - to turn it all in and quit

placer ses billes - to invest, to bet, to take a risk

à billes égales - level playing field

I'm pleased to note that every September, on the playground of the école primaire where I teach, students come back to school with their marbles:  they play, they trade, they admire, they collect, they categorize, they win, they lose.  When I tell them that the ancient Greeks and Romans played marbles, the children are pleased.  When they realize that their teacher has her own marble collection, they beg me to bring it to school so I can "show and tell."  In 2009, boys and girls alike are true enthusiasts when it comes to being experts. When it comes to marbles, ils touchent leur bille!

Amélie Nothomb est choquante!

Hier, j'ai eu un choc.  Pendant plus d'une heure, en présence d'une centaine d'autres personnes rassemblées à l'Alliance Française de Washington, j'ai joui en écoutant l'auteure belge Amélie Nothomb.  Hier, je ne connaissais rien d'elle.  Hier, j'ignorais tout de cette femme qui depuis 15 ans publie un roman par an et qui est actuellement une des plus grandes auteures à succès de la langue française.  Hier, lorsque j'ai serré la main d'Amélie Nothomb et me suis fait dédicacer un de ses livres, je n'avais encore rien lu d'elle.  Je me suis jurée sur place de tout lire d'elle tant le choc qu'elle m'a procuré fut vivifiant.  Où puise-t-elle donc sa capacité de parler avec tant de clarté, de drôlerie, et d'irrévérence ?  Comment fait-elle pour manier ainsi la langue française pour être à la fois fraîche, subversive, gaie, percutante, impertinente, amusante, inattendue ?  Quelle magie opère-t-elle pour qu'un homme de très grande culture lui avoue devant tout l'auditoire " Vous m'avez redonné le goût de la lecture." ?  Cette remarque - belle et émouvante - en dit long sur son talent d'écrivain. Ce qu'elle disait était à la fois sensé et fou, profond et léger, grave et humoristique.  Son intervention avait la forme d'un entretien : le journaliste Claude Porsella lui posait des questions, elle répondait. Ses réponses furent comme elle : tour à tour comiques, justes, graves.  De retour à la maison, j'ai eu le plaisir de goûter à son "Stupeur et tremblements" - j'ai tout avalé en un seul morceau - et je ne me suis pas trompée... Je dois tout lire d'elle.  

Belge, fille de parents diplomates, née à Kobe au Japon, elle ne met les pieds dans "son" pays, la Belgique, qu'à 17 ans.  Mais est-ce son pays ? Difficilement.  Son Japon natal lui tient encore plus à coeur; cependant, son retour au pays du soleil levant après des études universitaires en Belgique lui réserve bien des surprises. Heureusement pour nous, ce sont ces expériences là, aussi désastreuses que fécondes, qui sont à l'origine d'une oeuvre littéraire dont nous nous régalons aujourd'hui.  Sa recherche d'identité, sa soif de comprendre la vie, ses observations d'un écartèlement vécu entre les langues, les cultures, et les valeurs nous valent, à partir de ses 23 ans, une auteure pour le XXIe siècle.  Ses étonnements, ses déceptions, ses découvertes, ses blessures, et son coeur qui chavire entre son pays natal et le pays de ses ancêtres sont à l'origine d'une oeuvre immense :  d'ailleurs, son parcours fait penser à d'autres, celui par exemple d'Edith Wharton, elle aussi tiraillée entre sa culture d'origine et celle qu'elle choisit, en prise continuelle avec une quête d'identité au thème universel d'appartenance.  Tant de personnes peuvent s'identifier au déracinement qu'a vécu Amélie Nothomb.  Son histoire lui donne autant un regard extérieur empreint de douleur et de pathos qu'un regard intimiste lui permettant des observations pertinentes sur la vérité humaine.  Tous ceux qui expérimentent un statut d'excentrique peuvent comprendre d'emblée, mais tous ne sont pas capables de l'exprimer comme le fait Amélie Nothomb.

Je suis arrivée à l'Alliance portant un chapeau.  Elle est arrivée en chapeau.  A mon insu, elle est connu pour ses chapeaux.  Lorsqu'elle dédicaçait mon livre, j'avais l'impression qu'elle remarquait le mien. Mais elle a simplement dit "Jane : c'est un prénom que j'aime beaucoup.  Good-bye, Jane, and thank you so much for coming." C'est moi qui vous remercie, Amélie.  Quel choc !

Mary Amato is funny.

Mary Amato is funny. I've discovered this in the last few weeks as I've participated in an "Adults Writing For Children" class she's teaching at the Writers' Center in Bethesda, Maryland called "What's So Funny?"  She's trying to impart to the eclectic group that we form how to introduce levity, clarity, wordplay, and some humor into our writing.  She claims she's not funny but the peals of laughter coming out of our classroom would make any passer-by wonder why those people are having so much fun.  When one hears her big voice and her spontaneous laugh, when one listens to her examples of wordplay and fun in her own writing, one knows: This woman gets it.  She knows that in life, as in writing, you have to "lighten up."  The titles of her books are proof enough - The Riot Brothers, Take the Mummy and Run, Please Write in This Book. Thanks, Mary, for making us laugh and for making us funnier!

2009 Newbery Medal

Neil Gaiman's novel "The Graveyard Book" has won this year's Newbery Medal, the American Library Association's highest honor for children's literature.  Complaints were voiced last year that "Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices From A Medieval Village" by L.A. Schiltz was unreadable, and that children wouldn't like it.  It hasn't sold particulary well.  There were those who thought that previous year's recipient, Susan Patron's "The Higher Power of Lucky" was both unduly harsh and unpalatably saccharine (I personally loved Patron's book) and that her main character, Lucky, came off as under-developed and without much consistency.  When compared another to Newbery winner written 40 years ago, "Up A Road Slowly" by Irene Hunt, whose main character is complex, not easily pegged, and who matures through both difficult and joyful challenges, Patron's character Lucky might indeed seem as wispy and thin as a sheet of paper.  But perhaps that's just the difference 40 years make.  I have yet to read Mr. Gaiman's honored work, so until I do, I will reserve judgement.  It promises to be interesting:  it is, after all, the story of a boy raised by ghosts (!) after his family is killed.  What I do know is that "The Graveyard Book" has been on the New York Times bestseller list for weeks, that the author himself doesn't consider it to be a "children's" book, and that he found inspiration for the work in Kipling's "The Jungle Book" and was encouraged by his son's interest and hunger to know the end of the story.  

More later, once I've read the book.  I wonder if it will be appropriate for my fourth grade students?  The boys will probably love it.