This is the brilliant comics artist Lynda Barry:
October 29, 2023
"I tell four four-year-olds that I am writing a poem of what ever they say. When one makes a statement like 'you are 1,006' or 'I am a 'W'..."
"I write it slowly and read it outloud as I’m writing it. Then I read it outloud to make sure I have it right. The four K kids love to see handwriting come out of my hand. They are interested in how writing can save something in a way that allows it to be said and read repeatedy, exactly, multiple times...."
ADDED: If you like that, I highly recommend the book "Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching Children to Write Poetry" by Kenneth Koch. (That's an Amazon link, so I earn a commission if you use it.)
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23 comments:
Are these inner city kids? Where did she find four four-year-olds who didn’t know about writing?
Also, I want to hear the poem she wrote entitled “I am a W”
Like every other human being, children are highly motivated when they believe they are being heard instead of herded.
Great to teach them the magic of writing. I teach my piano students how to write down their compositions so they can mail them their grandma who can then play them exactly the same.
But writing in short lines does not equal "a poem". Meter and rhyme are things.
cool
"Are these inner city kids?"
Lynda Barry is located here in Madison. In addition to being a famous artist, she's a professor in the art department of the University of Wisconsin.
"Where did she find four four-year-olds who didn’t know about writing?"
Where did you lose your sense of wonder about writing?
It seems like the modern female mind at work.
Eudora Welty's One Writer's Beginnings didn't have the claptrap aspect.
Teach the kids programming
Poem:
$ insult 10
You provoking pony of unvirginal snow goose vomition
You replusive jorum of infested manta emesis
You monstrous sack of ravaged grouper sputum
You hideous tumbler of unchaste Archangel cat spout
You crushing carpetbag of variolar chipmunk autacoid
You saddening dish of indecent pilot fish remainders
You ugly shovel of septic adjutant bird ends
You plaguey tea urn of unassimilable badger remnants
You undesirable bedroll of infected leopard flowers
You disfigured wire basket of laryngitic fluke egesta
Do make a poem about “You are orange.”
Let them be thrilled, that is the natural state of 4 year olds.
Where did you lose your sense of wonder about writing?
In grade school in the 1950s, when I had to write “I will not [whatever I had been doing] in class” 100 times. I admire real creativity, but not all writing is particularly creative.
When my child was that age, we went to some of her UW programs for kids. The time she took with each of them, mirroring their curiosity and truly listening to them was an inspiration and guided my parenting from that point on.
She is a local treasure since coming to UW.
It's amazing how much young kids love to learn, to take in new things. And always, constantly with the add on, "Why?" as you're showing or telling them something. Their minds are like vast sponges ready to soak up anything and everything we can throw at them. The waste is putting those open minds in front of a monitor, a TV, a video game, even some child-level video game. Read to them, show them, take them on small local adventures. Show them farm animals, or the local fire house. Show them as much as you can because...at some point, the mind quits being so sponge-like. Then they turn into teenagers.
Thank you for posting this! We have a grandson who just turned one and his parents are wisely planning to limit screen-time and emphasize creative and interactive play. I can definitely see that in a few years, he will be fascinated by having his words written down and given importance by the adults around him.
On a similar note, my friend used to have her kids read aloud and she recorded them. Then at bedtime she would put on the recording and they would follow along with the book again, listening to themselves. They loved it. They now have Masters degrees in Computer Engineering so that whole reading emphasis was probably a good thing.
It is fun to teach kids, and everyone else, poetry.
Once they're old enough, form poetry is actually easier to teach. Form releases the hidden potential between words. It reduces the anxiety of personal creation. I've never had a student whose best poem wasn't from a form poem assignment.
I had a terrible student write a great villanelle. It completely changed her attitude. Every great poet became great by learning to master form first. It takes more creativity than free verse. People who think only free verse is really free are missing a lot.
This exercise for very young children is a sort of introduction to form poetry. There's repetition and attention to voice. You could take their words and make haikus.
I bet anyone here could write a great sonnet.
Lewis Turco's Book of Forms is wonderful.
Also Richard Hugo's The Triggering Town.
unvirginal snow
provokes an unchaste pony
ravaged indecent
--rhhardin in haiku
"The four K kids love to see handwriting come out of my hand. They are interested in how writing can save something in a way that allows it to be said and read repeatedy, exactly, multiple times...."
This is actually a basic, but brilliant, observation.
Something we take for granted and never think about.
Typo in 'repeatedly' btw.
On teaching poetry to children, see Theodore Roethke "Last Class" google books link
As to the wonder of writing, I would add the wonder of speech. Walker Percy, in "Message In the Bottle" ruminates on how the message is itself a message, signifying that things signify. I would add, any letter would be a sort of telepathy to one not understanding what writing does.
Last Class is great no matter how he bridges the gender difference. Or not.
I think Sylvia Path and Hemingway would have been great lovers.
I meant no disrespect when I mined your words. There were incandescent choices.
My favorite modern poet is James Dickey.
Very under-rated.
Any fans of Rumi among the poets here?
I'm not really a poet guy
(But I frickin' love Dead Poets Society)
The Rumi poems I have run into speak to my depths
(he's a Sufi from the 13th century)
apologies if I'm twice posting this
the dog ate my homework
and fucking Blogger, man
The USA loves Rumi.
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