With summer around, can teachers’
conferences be far behind? For the teachers of
literature, these will be for the purpose of assessing
and evaluating their effectiveness in the pedagogy
of fiction and poetry. With poetry specifically,
there are certain questions that will have to
be re-answered in the light of changing classroom
realities and social concerns. Here are some which
I am asked often in conferences and discussions,
and my answers—
1. What poems do I take up in
class? This should not really be a problem,
since it is assumed that the teacher knows his
students, their intellectual character and social
background, the material resources of the library,
and the objective of the course. With a little
imagination to work on these conditions, the
teacher should be able to determine what poems
are available and suitable for classroom use.
He must relate them to the students’ political,
religious, personal, and cultural values and
realities, otherwise, the poems will be strange
pieces of writing to the students. The teacher
must not forget that, above all, a poem is a
sociological utterance and cannot be understood
outside the domains of social relationship.
2. Is there only one interpretation
of a poem? The richness and value of a poem
resides in the multiplicity of meanings that
it offers. In this sense, the more interpretations
it has, the better, since this indicate a wide
magnitude or university of appeal. Readers may
have a variety of reactions to the same poem,
for they have different personal and social
circumstances. No interpretation is better than
another—it can only be profound or relevant
considering the aspects of the poem being studied.
The only rule is that these interpretations,
to be acceptable, must not contradict each other
but must sustain, strengthen, and support each
other. If not, some error of analysis has been
committed, and the teacher must re-examine the
reading. There is not only one interpretation
of a poem, be it a good or a bad poem, for language
has a variety of effects and significance to
different readers. Indeed, one may read the
same poem several times and get different meanings
each time. One may concentrate, for instance,
on social aspect on the first reading, and on
the political aspect on the second reading,
and on the religious aspect on the third reading;
his interpretation will not be the same on the
three readings, but they will not cancel each
other. In fact, they will show the rich layers
of meaning available in the poem.
3. Should we teach only poems
in the traditional style or poems in the modern
style? It is better to teach both. Classical
verse (those with definite rhyme-schemes and
meter) and free verse and all its varieties,
are valid means of poetic expression. The teacher
must know their history and characteristics
so that he can point out to his students certain
areas of similarities and differences between
these two modes. Free verse, actually, is only
free from definite meter and rhyme schemes;
in all aspects, it is governed by strict rules
prosody linked to its philosophical framework.
Free verse and traditional verse can also be
seen as simply means of linguistic expression,
and not as ends in themselves. We cannot, therefore,
say that a poem is good because it is written
in traditional or in free verse.
4. How do we know if it is a
good poem? We must remember that a poem is “good”
not in the moral but in the aesthetic sense.
A poem is a good poem when, using the artistic
and linguistic materials demanded by his craft,
the poet is successful in fashioning he rich
multiplicity of meaning earlier mentioned. The
good poem changes the reader for the better—it
makes him realize, through its skillful mergence
of form and content, the authentic state of
human conditions. He personalizes his knowledge
when he applies it to his own individual situation.
Thus, we say that the poem “inspires”
us or that we “learn” from it.
5. What is the best method of
teaching poetry? This is the most asked question,
and the most difficult to answer, considering
the mysteries of pedagogy. But it seems that
the method is best which achieves the best results.
Since environmental factors differ from classroom
to classroom and from region to region, the
teacher should be innovative enough in his approach.
Because he will encounter many problems making
his students understand and appreciate the poem,
he must adapt his teaching techniques to his
milieu. For instance, he must employ audio-visual
devices to concretize the ideas in the poem
and make students grasp poetic principles. Drawings,
pictures, audio- and video-tapes and anything
of such nature available can facilitate poetic
learning. At the same time, they will help students
in justifying or confirming their own interpretations.
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