Poetry 180 is/was a project whose goal was to expose high school kids to one poem a day (the 180 being the 180 days of the school year). The idea was that the poem was simply supposed to be read aloud. No analysis, no discussion. Just read and heard. Some of the poems from poetry 180 were collected in a physical book, and it was one of my favorites when I was teaching. Overall, the poems in it are what Liz called guilty pleasures: not simple poems, but poems that you can "get" on a first read. And I agree with Liz that that is a good thing. It's what I hope my poems are. Sure, there are elements of my own poems (I hope) that become more apparent on a rereading, and technical aspects that only those who have recently studied literary terms might be able to name. But I still hope that anyone, scholar or not, poetry-lover or not, would be able to pick up one of my poems and get something out of it on a first read.
In the spirit of guilty pleasures, I will offer today some of my favorite poems from the Poetry 180 project. Read them once, maybe aloud! Enjoy.
This one is a perfect one to start with, considering our conversation about analyzing poems, or not:
"Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins
I always liked this one because it is about numbers:
"Numbers" by Mary Cornish
A nice short one:
"Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter" by Robert Bly
I love the end of this one:
"The End of April" by Phylis Levin
And this is one of my favorite poems of all time. Luli made the last sentence of this poem into a poster for my high school classroom.
"The Summer Day" by Mary Oliver
1 comment:
Great set. The Collins' poem is brilliant, especially those last two stanzas. The Bly poem makes me think of other really short poems that say so much, like the William Carlos Williams poem "This is just to say."
Post a Comment