ALL high school students, teachers, and administrators should be aware of this program! Former Poet Laureate Billy Collins–one of America’s most beloved, successful and accessible poets–has spearheaded Poetry 180: a poem for every day of the school year.
The basic idea is that high school students be exposed to one poem (of the 180 poems pre-selected on the website) each day, to make poetry a part of their daily lives. The poems are specifically selected for a younger audience and are meant to be read in a public way (for example, at a school’s end-of-day announcements), to emphasize that poetry is for everyone, not just poets and writers–and teachers are encouraged to select student readers. I also think this might also work in a smaller format–the poems can be read and discussed in classrooms, assigned as course reading, et cetera. Also, it could not be more easy to participate: it’s completely free, all the poems are printable from the website, participation can begin at any time, and the poems can be used in any order. There’s even a page with tips on successful poem-reading!
Personally, I think this is a great idea. While not everyone will be open to the poems at first, it’s a great way to show kids that poems can be cool. I wish I had a program like this in high school–even just in English class. It’s so easy to implement, and the poems are well-written, fun, and easy to “get.” Also, they’re contemporary–which is much more appealing to today’s kids, and much more helpful for those who are actually interested in becoming writers. I can say without question that I would have learned more about being a good writer (not to mention had a much easier time in college, and a more fun time in high school English class) had I been exposed to such great contemporary writing in high school. When I was in high school, almost all we got was Shakespeare–whose plays are great but whose poems are, in today’s literary world, outdated–and much different from the kind of poetry writers are expected to be capable of producing today.
Here are a few sample poems from the website (including one from Collins himself, which would be a good introductory poem for this project).
________
“Introduction to Poetry”
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
–Billy Collins
________
“Grammar”
Maxine, back from a weekend with her boyfriend,
smiles like a big cat and says
that she’s a conjugated verb.
She’s been doing the direct object
with a second person pronoun named Phil,
and when she walks into the room,
everybody turns:
some kind of light is coming from her head.
Even the geraniums look curious,
and the bees, if they were here, would buzz
suspiciously around her hair, looking
for the door in her corona.
We’re all attracted to the perfume
of fermenting joy,
we’ve all tried to start a fire,
and one day maybe it will blaze up on its own.
In the meantime, she is the one today among us
most able to bear the idea of her own beauty,
and when we see it, what we do is natural:
we take our burned hands
out of our pockets,
and clap.
–Tony Hoagland
________
“Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?”
Give up sitting dutifully at your desk. Leave
your house or apartment. Go out into the world.
It’s all right to carry a notebook but a cheap
one is best, with pages the color of weak tea
and on the front a kitten or a space ship.
Avoid any enclosed space where more than
three people are wearing turtlenecks. Beware
any snow-covered chalet with deer tracks
across the muffled tennis courts.
Not surprisingly, libraries are a good place to write.
And the perfect place in a library is near an aisle
where a child a year or two old is playing as his
mother browses the ranks of the dead.
Often he will pull books from the bottom shelf.
The title, the author’s name, the brooding photo
on the flap mean nothing. Red book on black, gray
book on brown, he builds a tower. And the higher
it gets, the wider he grins.
You who asked for advice, listen: When the tower
falls, be like that child. Laugh so loud everybody
in the world frowns and says, “Shhhh.”
Then start again.
–Ron Koertge
________
“Selecting a Reader”
First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
“For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned.” And she will.
–Ted Kooser
________
I sincerely hope more schools will consider implementing this–and to all you high school students who are being deprived of great contemporary poetry, notify your teachers and administrators, and if that doesn’t work, read these poems for yourself! You will learn so much.
To learn more about the program, read the rest of the poems, or get started on this grand idea, check out the website at Library of Congress.
