2022 Post #4 -- Language of the House

by Tim Reisert

In what language do you dream?

In grade school, half of my day was taught in French, the other half in English. Not typical for Cincinnati, Ohio. But there I was, sometimes a translator between my parents and my teachers from Belgium.

Bilingualism for me when young wasn’t without struggle, and moments of thinking in, even dreaming in, French were openings of doors. Though my French is now beyond rusty, my heart swells when my children (ages 10 and 7) use Spanish they have learned from their school.

Some questions for students:

• What is it like to switch from one language to another? / What would it be like to be able to switch from one language to another?
• What language(s) is/are spoken where you live? What words or phrases are unique to where you live?

Manuel Iris writes about this topic in his poem, "The language of the house."



After reading Manuel Iris’s poem, have students discuss the speaker’s initial fear: “Sometimes I’m afraid you will talk / in the language in which I cannot dream.” How might the speaker’s relationship to a place where most use another language complicate the parent/child relationship and “the impossibility of belonging”? Also, students may discuss Iris’s use of “homeland.”

Try these ideas to invite student writing based on this poem:

• Write about a word or phrase unique to where you live. How does this word or phrase describe your relationship to those around you?
• Write a short poem in one language. Then translate it the best you can into another language.
• If language is a house, then describe its rooms. Its doors. And who lives there.

Be sure to check out Iris’s bilingual performance of this poem and others from his collection The parting present / Lo que se ira. The poem in this lesson starts at 2:35.  

 
Here is a link to the collection The parting present / Lo que se ira. 


Further Reading: 



Tim Reisert teaches at St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati, Ohio. His poetry has appeared in Root & Star and participates with the Ohio Writing Project. (Twitter: @tdreisert; Instagram: @timreisert)