Poet. Know it.

We've just finished a poetry unit, a solid three weeks of study and self-expression. Here, the middle school all does poetry at the same time, so that we can end with a poetry extravaganza (very generously termed a "slam"). This Thursday, the top three poets from grades 6-8 (as voted by their peers and a panel of judges) will take the mic and give it their all. The whole middle school will be encouraged to wear black in a massive attempt to truly get their Beat on. Cigarettes dangling from limp fingers are strictly forbidden. Berets are optional.

Many teachers resist teaching poetry because, really, who knows anything about it? Others who DO teach poetry write tracts in educational journals about how academically rigorous and challenging it should be, so if you're circling up the kids and telling them to write about their feelings, you are surely 1) an ignoramus and 2) irrevocably damaging young minds.

I personally prefer the stance of Stephen Fry, one of those very cool British actors and comedians who are also erudite writers. In his book The Ode Less Traveled (highly recommended, go buy it now), he insists that people do need to be taught how to write poetry AND that anyone is capable of doing so. To prove his point, he starts off the book with a series of iambic pentameter exercises. It sets my language-nerd heart aflutter.

It's also a mindset that makes it fun to teach poetry as opposed to stressful or stressfully unstructured. Kids learn tools to help them write strong verse and then are encouraged to try it out. They do so with varying degrees of comfort and finesse, but it is the rare and grumpy child who simply refuses to try. Poems are short, which makes them less threatening than an essay or narrative. It's easy to start again...and again...and again...And once you start, who knows down what roads poetry may lead you.

Case in point: my students this year appear to be a well adjusted, chipper bunch. We had a rollicking debate about whether the word "fart" consitutes an onomatopoeia. We went outside and described what we saw. We examined common symbols, practiced alliteration and had what I thought was a high-school-level discussion of e.e. cummings's classic "maggie and milly and molly and may."

They then proceeded to write the most dismal, gut-wrenching, raven-quothing poems featuring death-bed scenes, spectral possession, murder in the night and the agony of lost love. And, lest you think otherwise, this was weeks before the English department decided on the Gothy/Beatnik dress code for the poetry slam. When we talked about trees and flowers being common symbols for life, I had no idea how many bouquets of dead and dying foliage I'd be sorting through when the final portfolios were turned in. I blame the Twilight series. Or else there is a darkside to Abu Dhabi I have yet to discover.

Poetry is also democratic in that teachers are often no better at it than the students. I wrote a few of my own poems during the lengthier workshop times in class when I resolutely refused to answer any questions in the hope of fostering self-reliance. Suffice it to say, my own verse (which will never be featured here) was much less preciously dreary, but no less laborered. Writing poetry is hard. Writing good poetry is almost impossible.

Then why do we make kids try it, year after year? Isn't it just a bit antiquated, like typewriters, landlines and cursive? And who actually writes poetry anymore? If you're not a spinster living in New England or a hermit on a hilltop or fluent in the latest lit-speak, what right do you have to pen a verse?

My sister has a friend, Midwestern and happily married, who had a book of poems published in her 20s, so, yes, people still write poetry. But even if you don't, you have to admit that poetry is special--and necessary in its specialness. There are things a poem can say that prose never could. There are elements of the human experience that cry out for a couplet or a metaphor, rather than a staid sentence. Which is why poetry is a force in so many cultures--much more of a force than it is in ours. Here in the UAE, in fact, there is an "American Idol" type show called "Millionaire Poet." Arabic poetry, written almost exclusively by men, is considered one of the most virile things a guy can be good at around here. And one kid told me that the Koran even rhymes (in Arabic). A Google search confirms this, but I'll need many more lessons with Madame L to be sure.

When was the last time you read a poem? Wrote one? Do you have a favorite? Feel free to comment here...