"This is Just to Say"

I am very partial to the poetry of William Carlos Williams. Particularly the poem "This is Just to Say." Last week, I was working on a poetry writing unit with my three Creative Writing Students and I asked them to find three poems each: 1 that "sang" to them, 1 that they just liked and 1 that they really hated. For each of those poems, they were to write a 1/2 to 1 page (double spaced) response and address certain questions I provided or respond freely. Then, we all sat at a table together, read our poems and talked about like, dislike, hate, love...

I was by far one of the most eye opening experiences of my life. One of my students wrote about his love for the poem "I am the People, the Mob" by Carl Sandburg. I don't have what he wrote in front of me, but it literally brought me to tears. I had NEVER thought about the poem in the way that he made me think about it.

Well, back to Williams...as it turns out one of my students dislikes his poetry for the exact reasons I love it: the choppy lines, the super short poems, the simple settings and singular focus etc. And the student asked me why I liked poetry that "wasn't really like a poem." Wasn't that a great opportunity to discuss what makes a poem a poem? This is the joy of my teaching experience. I adore the opportunity to share what I love, be impressed by the thoughts of my brilliant students and open their minds to new ideas. I'm teaching and learning and thinking and doing and living all in one. Education is not just well designed lesson plans and well organized classrooms--it's about engaging students and sharing the passion for language and learning.

Somedays, I love my life.