Poems, Poets, and Verse Novels

Like many ELA teachers, I began my career with an uneasy relationship with regard to teaching poetry. As an undergrad, I fell in love with a variety of poets--John Donne, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Frost, Anne Bradstreet, Countee Cullen, and Sharon Olds among a host of  others. While I learned to do those close readings--a la the new critics, I wondered if modeling those close readings really engaged my students. In truth, many of them learned to do the "work" but I am not sure they enjoyed the close reading of Edgar Lee Masters' Mr. Flood's Party as much as I did.

Lessons seemed to lack a sense of joy. That certain sense of discovery and excitement of seeing how the individual parts enhanced the whole. Students need to discover that they liked rhythm and rhyme in it natural habitat. We know that most of them do. They love music in almost all of it forms--rap, folk, and classic rock and roll. They memorize the lyrics to their favorite songs and write their own. It seems that as soon as we ask them to do an assignment they begin to shut down. So, what is the answer? I am not sure, but I think it will have something to do with sharing joy and discovering. 

I found that reading poetry with students frequently, without the burden to parse and explore its structure and meaning every time, built a level of shared joy.

For the past two years, I posted a poem a day on Facebook. At the end of the month I archived my picks on this Blog. Immediately below are the four post--two in 2019 and two in 2020--that catalogue my engagement with poetry for those two months.  It was fun and I didn't repeat any poems over the two years. Did I pick your favorite?

4/16/2019:
http://www.yawednesday.com/blog/a-poem-a-day-during-april-of-course
5/1/2019:
http://www.yawednesday.com/blog/saying-goodbye-to-april-and-a-month-of-poetry
4/8/2020:
http://www.yawednesday.com/blog/april-is-poetry-month-while-you-stay-at-home-here-are-a-few-recommendations
4/29/2020:
http://www.yawednesday.com/blog/april-is-poetry-month-and-i-tried-to-do-my-part

This year I am in the midst of planning and writing a chapter on the YA verse novel. I am not posting a poem a day this year but I am thinking about those YA verse novels all of the time. I immediate thought of YA verse novels that have won the National Book Award for Young Peoples Literature. I found four. I hope I am correct. I think these four books are remarkable and not a bad place to start if you are new to YA verse novels. Jacquline Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming, Thanhha Lai's Inside Out & Back Again, Elizabeth Acevdo's The Poet X, and the last one, Virginia Euwer Wolff's True Believer, is unique. The others are standalone novels and this one is second book in the Make Lemonade Trilogy.

One of the gifts of  hosting a blog is that I get to hear from people who know more about a specific topic than I do. In the past, there have been several contributors who have helped me gain a better understanding of the world of YA verse novels. A few of my favorites are listed below. 
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I hope you also revisit some of the older posts and add a book of poetry to your "To Be Read List." The authors of these post include: Lesley Roessing, Padma Venkatraman, Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong.

1. http://www.yawednesday.com/blog/30-mgya-verse-novels-for-national-poetry-month-engaging-reluctant-readers-enriching-enthusiastic-readers-and-appreciating-story-form-language-by-lesley-roessing
2. http://www.yawednesday.com/blog/verse-novels-for-national-poetry-month-by-lesley-roessing
3. http://www.yawednesday.com/blog/better-and-verse-by-padman-venkatraman
4. http://www.yawednesday.com/blog/poetry-for-young-adults-finding-sharing-writing-by-sylvia-vardell-and-janet-wong-and-a-nod-to-bob-dylan
5. http://www.yawednesday.com/blog/saying-goodbye-to-april-and-a-month-of-poetry

In the past, I have included verse novel in my YA courses. I sometimes highlight a few as verse novels. Other times I pick them because they match a thematic topic that I want my students to think about. Out of 20 to 25 novels four to five have often been verse novels. 

Working on this project, I started to wonder what it might look like if all of the novels I used in my course where verse novels. Could I still cover all of the themes I had in mind? Could I still make connection to the Social Studies? Would the structural format still allow me to cover all of the themes that I usually introduce? The verse novel also has so many various forms and variations that can help preservice teachers envision how poetry can be used in a multitude of ways. 

I am not sure it will work, but I have been playing around with a collection of verse novels that would introduce my students to awards, themes, the history of YA, and would allow them to do an author study or a focus on a specific ethnic experience.

I know I am missing something. What might it be. Which books would you add? Which book you replace? I am still playing with the syllabi and the underlying essential questions. If you have some ideas, I would love to hear about them.

Novels for EDRL 402 fall 2021
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson        
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo                 
The Realm of Possibility by David Levithan
Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff            
Mystery
Who Killed Mr. Chippendale? by Mel Glenn            
Gun Violence
People Kill People by Ellen Hopkins                 
LGBTQ
The Black Flamingo  by Deab Atta                     
Redwood a Ponytail by K. A. Holt
Grief
Turtle Under Ice  by Juleah del Rosario                   
Glimpse  by Carol Lynch Williams                           
Three Things I Know are True  by Betty Culley                
One of those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies by Sonya Sones   
Compare with a Classic
Long Way Down   by Jason Reynolds                      
Asian Perspective
Orchards  by Holly Thompson                           
Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai           
A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatraman                      
If I Tell You the Truth by  Jasmin Kaur               
Sports 
The Crossover by Kwame Alexander                          
Beanball by Gene Fehler                          
History
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse                       
White Rose by Kip Wilson                            
Audacity  by Melanie Crowder                           
Like Water on Stone by Diana Walrath                       
Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough                     
Death Coming up the Hill  by Chris Crowe               

In the meantime, We will have another post on verse novels by Lesley Roessing on Friday. In addition, you should be checking out what Sarah Donovan is doing during the month of April with poetry. You can find her at Ethical ELA and found out how she is defining #verselove.

Until next week.