Metrophobia Blog #2

I ache for people who approach poetry like a root canal with torturous fear.  They may have experienced the English class torture chamber Mr. Collins described for us; holding the poems of dead, white, men hostage.  There may have been a sprinkling of Whitman and Dickinson. But the experience sucked the joy out of their marrow...crippling their poetic souls. That school experience is enough to cause some to run with they hear the word poetry later in life as if there were a swarm of killer bees after them.

 I hope that in this High School Poetry class we can reexamine poetry and learn to love it.  Just as we love other things like music and food; we don't all love the same types, but for each of us there is something we like. To the average person, poetry conjures images of archaic rhyming couplets, Shakespeare, beatniks snapping their fingers, diaries full of feelings, and a horde of other stereotypes. Like all stereotypes it only shows a few aspects and not the multifacets of poetry.
You could say that those people who run, suffer from Metrophobia, the fear of poetry.
Ideally poetry is everything, and that most certainly includes humor, love and modern relevancy. All those people who pass poetry off as elitist and esoteric work of dead white men are happy to create their self-fulfilling prophecies, limiting themselves and missing out on gems.
 I hope that each of you will not fall prey to Metrophobia so you don't miss out on great poems like these gems by Maya Angelou:

Alone
by Maya Angelou
Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
                                                                               
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees                
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors            
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
             
Directions for this blog:  Watch and read the poems by Maya Angelou.  In this post write a response paragraph or poem to one of  Angelou's poems. Tell my what you think?

P.S. Do you suffer from any Metrophobia?

Welcome to Poetry!

Welcome to the fabulous world of poetry! I am so excited to study poetry with you this semester.

As we study this semester I want you to think about...
Why write poetry? 
Why Study poetry? 
Why is it that for thousands of years human beings have been creating and thinking and writing down their thoughts in the form of poetry?  
These are all fabulous questions; ones that I hope you will answer for yourselves this semester.
I believe we love poetry because it is alive, it is the expression of humanity.  Poetry is full of emotion, passion, opinions, beauty, anger, hope, dreams, fears...it is the window into our souls.  Part of being human is the desire to express ourselves.  I believe poems are the expression of what is inside each of us, and each poem is written because of a need to express our emotions.
Poems allow us to express a moment, a feeling, an idea as truthfully and carefully as possible so that each reader can feel the essences of the emotion behind it.
There are so many poems, types of poems and ways to express ourselves.  I can't wait to get started!☺

Once you have set up your blog please write your first post.  Tell me why you are studying poetry. What is your experience with poetry and how do you feel about it? Why do you think so many people either love or hate poetry?  What do you hope to gain from your experience with poetry?