Poetry Friday--Thanks for the Memories

Last Friday, Muriel asked if teachers have time to let children memorize poems. I'm guessing, probably not. What a shame. I understand that today's students face a slew of curriculum requirements, and today's teachers barely have time to cover those mandated requirements. That doesn't make it any less a shame.

I'm glad that I teach preschool. Reciting simple rhymes and singing songs are expected parts of the curriculum. What many people don't know, is that little children are capable of so much more. My students have happily memorized Robert Frost's Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening and Emily Dickinson's A Bird Came Down the Walk. A few years ago, a mother of one of my kindergarten students told me she was moved to tears when she realized that her 5-year old was softly reciting Stopping By Woods to himself as they drove through a light snow. I bet that poem will still be with him when he's an old man.

Mur got me thinking about poems I've been carrying around for decades. Many of them came from Sister Genevieve St. Joseph. Barberries is one. (I tried unsuccessfully to search out the author.) A Bird Came Down the Walk by Emily Dickinson is another. I'd have to say my favorite, however, is a snippet of a much larger work. It's the first twelve lines of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.

Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(so priketh hem nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages ...

I had to memorize it for an English class my sophomore year in college. I spent hours in the language lab, gigantic headphones gripping my skull, trying to nail the pronunciation. There were probably 50 of us enrolled in the class. Guess who was the only person the professor randomly picked to recite. I achieved the pinnacle of panic when I heard my name called, which was really very silly because I nailed it. I owned Geoffrey Chaucer that day. Still do.

Today's Poetry Friday Round-Up host is Picture Book of the Day.

Poetry Friday--Do Teachers Today Have Time ...

to let children memorize poems? Probably not. My days as a classroom teacher are not that far away but I know my curriculum was pretty well monitored. I remember filling out forms that showed exactly how many minutes I planned to have my students learning math, social studies, science, etc.

Sister Jeanne, my third grade teacher at Saint Jean Baptiste School, believed children should memorize and perform poetry. I must have been a bit of a ham, because I remember volunteering to stand at the front of the class and recite. Sister's desk was set on a wooden platform. We were allowed to stand on the edge of the platform and speak--good facial expressions, hand gestures, and expressive voices were a requirement.

Of course, Sister Jeanne did not have to deal with all the interruptions that today's teachers must take into account. We did not have school picture day, lice checks, school nurses monitoring ing our weight, or intercoms interrupting with announcements (yeah, I'm THAT old...). Our school did not have music, gym, or art classes. We just went to class and learned stuff.

Kids today have so much more to learn than we did. It's no wonder that memorizing poetry had to go by the wayside. Still, all these years later, I cannot wake on the first day of October without reciting the title of this particular poem. So, Sister Jeanne, this one's for you:

October's Bright Blue Weather

by Helen Hunt Jackson

O suns and skies and clouds of June,

And flowers of June together,

Ye cannot rival for one hour

October's bright blue weather.

When loud the bumblebee makes haste,

Belated, thriftless vagrant,

And Golden Rod is dying fast,

And lanes with grapes are fragrant;

When Gentians roll their fringes tight,

To save them for the morning,

And chestnuts fall from satin burrs

Without a sound of warning;

When on the ground red apples lie

In piles like jewels shining,

And redder still on old stone walls

Are leaves of woodbine twining;

When all the lovely wayside things

Their white-winged seeds are sowing,

And in the fields, still green and fair,

Late aftermaths are growing;

When springs run low, and on the brooks,

In idle golden freighting,

Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush

Of woods, for winter waiting;

When comrades seek sweet country haunts

By twos and twos together,

And count like misers, hour by hour,

Octobers' bright blue weather.

O suns and skies and flowers of June,

Count all your boasts together,

Love loveth best of all the year

October's bright blue weather.

This week's Poetry Friday Round-Up is hosted by Two Writing Teachers. Lots of good poetry to check out!