Some Thoughts about Poetry and Pop Ed
P&D #14: On poetry practice and what's been keeping me busy
In This Issue:
Catching Up and a Poem-a-Day
This past 6 months has been the busiest for me since the pandemic began. It has felt, at times, like a rush and tumble. I've had to relearn how to focus in this age of ubiquitous distraction. As well as learn how to draw meaning worth sharing from the vast amount of data that I draw in from more sources than I can properly count. So my intention is to be more consistent from this point. And continue to share research and theory about popular education.
For now I would like to share with you one way that i've been practicing focus for some time: writing a poem a day. This is a practice that goes back many years for me and usually lasts for several months before I take a break. But I began once again - a couple of years before the pandemic and I'm still going strong. Practically speaking, writing a poem a day sometimes ends up being several poems while other days I jot down only fragments which I work on later in the week. A few months into the pandemic I decided to start sharing my poems on FaceBook and Instagram.
My most recent poem-a-day practice began with choosing to focus on several short forms some of which are common and familiar and a few less common and new to me. Thus my week looked like this:
Sunday: haiku
Monday: gathas
Tuesday: senryu
Wednesday: rubaiyat
Thursday: tankas
Friday: cherita
Saturday: longer forms
I've found over the years that, while poetry in general is, for me, a contemplative activity, the various short forms of which I am fond are excellent for practicing mindfulness. Thus I include both this daily practice as well as poetry in general as falling easily within a popular education practice. This does entail theorizing popular education as including contemplative activities which, apropos of the collective and participatory culture of popular education, may seem rather individual-focussed. But by simply orienting one's contemplation to one's connection with the social and environmental worlds, we can expand our notion of what popular education encompass. There is so much to notice in the world - beauty and suffering - all of it. As Rilke writes in his Book of Hours: “Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. / Just keep going. No feeling is final.”
What follows are brief introductions to the five types of short form poems (and a couple of examples) that I have been sharing the past few years. I recommend them all as worthwhile to engage. Give them a try.
Haiku
Bees collect pollen
in savoury sun-warmed air
Scent of russian sage
Perhaps the best known short form poem type in the world, haiku is generally described as three lines of five, then seven, then five syllables. This approximates in English the Japanese practice of seventeen "on" which are similar to English syllables. Many modern haiku don’t conform to seventeen syllables but rather seek to express an observation of nature in as few words as possible. I tend to stick to the 5/7/5 but occasionally try something different (especially inspired by Jon J. Muth's "Stillwater" books). Traditional haiku include a kigo or seasonal word. I also challenge myself to avoid using metaphor as this forces me to pay closer (deeper?) attention to what I am observing. But metaphor is fun so it happens often enough despite my attempts to avoid it. A haiku is, explicitly, a nature poem but the 5/7/5 structure lends itself to composing poems about anything. There is another form, senryu (see below), which uses the haiku form but which is focussed on something else. I like to stick to haiku being about nature.
Gatha
When i search for a library book and find it has 95 holds
I vow with all beings
to celebrate the printed word
shared and shared again
I learned about Gathas from Zen Buddhist Robert Aitken’s book The Dragon Who Never Sleeps (Parallax Press, 1992) which I picked up at the Green Gulch Zen Center when visiting there in the early 90s. Gathas are simple four line poems that are vows for daily living. Aitken describes The Dhammapada (a collection of Buddha's teachings that I first read 40 years ago) as being composed of gathas, but I've always found these rather stuffy. Aitken also points to the Avatamsaka Sutra (my favourite Buddhist teaching) chapter Purifying Practice which is made up of 139 gatha vows. But they've always struck me as a tad lofty and endlessly serious. Even Thich Nhat Hanh's collections of gathas (Present Moment, Wonderful Moment), though lovely, lack humour. All that said, I highly recommend all of these texts which I have found endlessly inspiring, often consoling, and frequently challenging. Aitken’s gathas are a wonderful combination of quotidian focus, wry humour, poignant observation. And I quite like the beat of the second line ("I vow with all beings") which Aitken adopted from the Purifying Practice chapter of the Avatamsaka Sutra.
Senryu
School bag dropped quickly
he runs to the baseball field
leaping into play
Senryu use the form of the haiku but, while haiku focus on nature, senryu focus on culture. Traditionally they tend to the satirical and focus on daily social, political, and economic life. I like how playful senryu can be. English author R.H. Blyth in his lovely book Senryu: Japanese Satirical Verse (The Hokuseido Press, 1949) describes senryu as being satirical without being cruel. In the preface to that book, Blyth notes that in one of his Japanese books about senryu someone has pencilled the comment: "Senryu are not to be read twice, however good they may be." But, while Blyth then defends senryu as deserving more attention than this comment suggests, it did make me immediately think of New Yorker Magazine cartoons as well as Gary Larson's The Far Side. It had never occurred to me to think of these cartoons (and many others besides) as a form of poetry. But they are certainly senryu-like and I am rethinking my take on these. Then there's always Calvin and Hobbes...
Tanka
Flowers hug themselves
Patient for the light and warmth
Of bright vernal days
Each year the earth remembers
Unforgetting seeds and bulbs
I know less about the history of tanka but learned it is a five line poem of 31 syllables (or "on" as with haiku). There are two sections to a tanka, the upper phrase of three lines (which like haiku use the 5 /7 / 5 syllable pattern), and a lower phrase of two lines of 7 syllables each. Originating in eighth to tenth Century Japan, tanka (then known as waka) were used for intimate communication between lovers or people who were courting. Thus the tanka was a kind of love poem (perhaps similar to the Elizabethan sonnet). I thought that this form might be interesting to use as a means of writing love poems to the earth.
Cherita
Pomegranate seeds swallowed
and the gift of seasons
was born
Each folding
unfolding into each
other endlessly
The cherita is one of the newest forms of poetry I have come across. And I loved it instantly. It is a six line poem in three stanzas, the first of which is one line, the second, two lines, and the third, three lines. It's a form that was created on June 22, 1997 by UK poet and artist ai li. She named this form in memory of her grandparents who were wonderful storytellers. Cherita is the Malay word for “story” or “tale.” And a cherita tells a story. It very quickly became my favourite short form poem. I love its focus on narrative and I realized that unlike haiku and senryu which tend to 'take a snapshot,' the cherita invites paying attention to the sequence of action. I've found it a wonderful form for synthesizing short (very, very short) versions of many tales I love to tell. When limited to only six lines one has to make some pretty hard decisions about what to leave in and leave out.
Finally, apropos of using poetry in popular education work, here's a whimsical exercise I have developed from a writing warm-up I learned from Deena Metzger's book Writing for Your Life: Discovering the Story of Your Life's Journey (HarperCollins, 1992). I first developed this as a closing activity for a workshop at the Highlander Research and Education Center (in Tennessee) in the 90s. The resultant collective poem delighted and amused everyone so much that, once the laughter had subsided, there was an enthusiastic plea to do it again. Which we did, with more laughter.
Pop Ed Toolkit: Alphabetical Sentences
Explain to participants that you are going to write sentences in which the words are in alphabetical order. Assure everyone that much will likely sound like nonsense. But this is intended simply as a writing warm-up exercise.
Choose one word and begin a sentence. Add words to your sentence in alphabetical order. E.g.: “happy imps jump klinging lusciously minding never over poultry…”
Don’t stop and think too much – just keep writing – speed and quantity are the goal. If you get hung up on a letter, just skip it and keep writing. Write, write, write.
When you’ve gone around the alphabet a few times (ideally in as few as 5 minutes and never longer than 8) review your work.
Share your combinations with others and look for combinations that fit and assemble a group poem. E.g.:
Ask everyone to examine their writing and circle combinations of two, three or four words. It could be something that makes them laugh or simply pleases them.
Ask everyone to choose one combination.
Number off.
One at a time, starting with person one, read one’s combination.
Repeat the reading but allow people to make a new choice if they wish.
Some Favourite Poetry Links and Podcasts
You can read my poem-a-day either on FaceBook or Instagram.
Podcasts:
Poetry Unbound: I never miss an episode of this podcast. Hosted by Pádraig Ó Tuama, it features a single poem which Pádraig recites and reflects upon in the spirit of a dialogue with the poet and the ideas in the poem. I never fail to learn something new about poetry and I’ve learned of many new poets.
The Slow Down: recommended by Pádraig Ó Tuama, I’ve been listening to this for a month and loving it.
Fifteen Poetry Podcasts: A list of podcasts that I’ve yet to learn more about. I’ve been perusing these for the past few weeks.
Daily Emailed Poetry:
These are four daily email subscriptions that bring wonder to my inbox every morning. Such abundance.