Possibility and Remembering in Poetry

The OPV home page features the following quotation:

We each carry lines of poetry with us

Words that others have written float back to us and stay with us, indelibly.
We clutch these “life lines” like totems, repeat them as mantras, and summon
them for comfort and laughter.
--Academy of American Poets

The power of language and imagery in poetry is something that can help us define
what is important in life for ourselves. Poetry can play an inspirational role, can
be a totem, can be a litany in our lives. Ultimately this lesson idea leads to
students using concrete imagery in order to write a poem that captures what is
most important for them to hold on to and to remember. Students begin by
reading widely from poems in the OPV archive and sharing them in groups. A
teacher might model reading the following few poems and lead discussion about
the power in these poems to inspire comfort and laughter and hope and pathos.
A Double Life
Dori Appel

Using the extended metaphor of a horse, Dori Appel writes about a young
girl’s imagination and sense of self and of the magic in the world.

I am in Sacred Motion
Alissa Lukara

Lukara captures a sense of oneness with the world and the central
affirmation at her core.

Miracle
Paulann Petersen

All of the potential in the world that doesn’t happen is suggested by this
powerful poem.

Ask Me
William Stafford

The image of a frozen river and the current underneath are used by
Stafford to answer some rhetorical (and some non-rhetorical) questions.

Calling
Vincent Wixon

Using the imagery of geese flying, Wixon is both reminded of home and
wonders about the connections we have to others and how we are
sustained in the world.
After reading widely and sharing poems, the following could be a close to the
lesson – students read one poem carefully, answer questions, and then are guided
in writing to create their own poem using Ben Hur Lampman’s How Could I be
Forgetting?

Before reading the poem, have students brainstorm answers to the following
questions:

What kinds of things do you forget over and over again?

What are some of the lessons of life that you have learned that you know
you shouldn’t forget?

Are there concrete things that remind you of those lessons?

What would happen if you forgot the lesson, but remembered the concrete
thing?

Is there a difference between forgetting something and something being

forgotten?

Read the poem and discuss the following questions:

What has the speaker forgotten in this poem?

What does the speaker remember?

The speaker mentions “trivial memories” rather than “very important

things” – what is the attitude of the speaker about what has been forgotten
and what he might be forgetting?

Invite students to write their own poems about what is truly important for them
to remember – focusing on using concrete images to represent their most
important life lessons. They may use these items in contrast to the kinds of
things that they may ignore or forget easily, perhaps that others find more
important than they do. What concrete images might they take with them as a
totem into their lives?