It so annoys me when young people – and even my own children, say they hate poetry… it’s because of the way it has been murdered – oops, I mean taught in schools. I was teaching young people who had huge difficulties with everything, life, families, drugs, teachers… and yet on the whole they really enjoyed the poetry lessons we had and really loved the poems. Not all the kids loved all the poems, obviously, but on the whole they came out of the classroom with something extra in their lives, another dimension to the world.
One of my favourite poets, and one who was most successful to teach, was Martín Espada. His poetry was not only appreciated by my students, but inspired them too. He writes about big themes, prejudice,injustice, illness, but also the everyday things, the little oddities of day to day life; I tried to get my students to be similarly observant and reflective. Some of his poems needed a little more unpicking than others, but this one was always enjoyed; the images are vivid and I was fortunate enough to be teaching with a wonderful friend who had also been to such islands, and drunk coco frío!
Coca-Cola and coco frío
On his first visit to Puerto rice,
Island of family folklore,
The fat boy wandered
From table to table
With his mouth open.
At every table, some great-aunt
Would steer him with cool spotted hands
To a glass of Coca-Cola.
One even sang to him, in all the English
She could remember, a Coca-Cola jingle
From the forties. He drank obediently, though
He was bored with this potion, familiar
From soda fountains in Brooklyn.
Then, at a roadside stand off the beach, the fat boy
Opened his mouth to coco frío, a coconut
Chilled, then scalped by a machete
So that a straw could inhale the clear milk.
The boy tilted the green shell overhead
And drooled coconut milk down his chin;
Suddenly, Puerto rice was not Coca-Cola
Or Brooklyn and neither was he.
For years afterwards, the boy marvelled at an island
Where the people drank Coca-Cola
And sang jingles from World War II
In a language they did not speak,
While so many coconuts in the trees
Sagged heavy with milk, swollen
And unbuckled.
Martín Espada
From City Of Coughing And Dead Radiators
Lois Elsden 
Lois, many kids and students should have you to thank for introducing them to “something extra in their lives, another dimension to the world”.
Speaking of “so many coconuts in the trees”, my post http://soundeagle.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/soundeagle-in-art-aphorism-and-paramusic/ can have some relevance here.
Besides, perhaps some of the students might also be perceptive towards and interested in aphorisms when you taught them poetry in the past.
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It is impossible to imagine a life without poetry.
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Isn’t it just?! I do miss that aspect of teaching – not much else, but I miss sharing my love of poems with the kids.
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I am taking a free online course in Modern Poetry just now, and it fans the flames yet again.
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Are you discovering any new poets?
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Golly, they all seem new. The Beats this week. So many poets, so little time. I loved the Martín Espada selection and will rad more.
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You must – I only chose the shorter less complex (but complex enough) ones for my students but his work is extensive – and political writings too! My greatest thrill was when I messaged him on facebook and he replied!
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Better still to encourage children to make poetry for themselves out of the stuff of their own lives. Then they own it.
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Oh I agree and I did! But they had to see it was possible, that their everyday and sometimes trivial experiences could be used to produce something wonderful! I put together a couple of anthologies of their poems and stories and circulated it around the authority and to other schools.
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You must have been an inspiring teacher. I was lucky enough to have English teachers who nurtured a love of language for its own sake.
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Oh thank you… I hope I managed to fire a little spark of enthusiasm in the kids!
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