2021 Post #21 -- Murmuration

by Sarah Gross

British poet Linda France created “Murmuration”, a collective poem, as a way to celebrate the natural world and help people recognize the ongoing climate crisis. Hundreds of people submitted lines of poetry and France joined them together into a stunning poem that celebrates nature. The five hundred submissions, married to each other line by line, create the language equivalent of a flock of birds diving and soaring, rising and flying, floating together; it’s a murmuration. Artist Kate Sweeney then created an animated film that brings the poem to life.

A celebration of nature, “Murmuration” is a gorgeous collection of images and language that reminds readers of the interconnectedness of the environment. Despite the climate crisis we are facing, readers are left with a sense of hope and wonder after reading/watching.

After watching the animated poem, explain to your students how France and Sweeney worked with lines submitted by the general public to create a poem celebrating nature and the environment. What would the challenges be in this kind of work? What are the benefits of creating a collaborative poem to address our relationship with nature?

Then challenge your students to create their own class “Murmuration”. Ask your students to compose a few lines using France’s original prompt.

Students should compose 1-3 lines of any length. The lines must celebrate the natural world and can begin with either “Because I love…” or “What if…” If they need inspiration, tell students to think about their favorite outdoor spaces. It could be their yard, the schoolyard, a lot on their street, or even a tree, flower, or bird in their neighborhood.

Have students submit their line(s) to a shared document or survey form. Together you can combine all of the lines into a collaborative class poem. Depending on how much time you have, you can revise the poem, mix lines together, and maybe even create illustrations! You could even create an animated slideshow to share your class poem with the wider world!

Further Reading: 

Sarah Gross is one of the co-organizers of NerdCampNJ. She teaches in central New Jersey and loves spending time outdoors. Follow her on Twitter @thereadingzone

2018 Poem #14 -- Voice of the Past

by Brett Vogelsinger

There is always something special about hearing a poet read his or her own words, and perhaps something extra special about hearing a recorded poet read these words posthumously.  This act reminds us that even the poems that end up commonly anthologized and in the canon are meant to be heard aloud, that they speak from the past most eloquently when we breathe life into them.

Langston Hughes poems frequently surface in student anthologies.  In this video, students have the chance to hear Langston Hughes talk about the experience that led him to write "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" as a young man just out of high school, and then he reads the poem aloud.

An intriguing video to pair with this: a contemporary high school student recites the same poem in the twenty-first century for the Poetry Out Loud competition: 

Three questions to discuss with students after sharing this poem:

• How does knowing the background of the poem and hearing it in the writer's own voice affect our experience with the poem?  
• How does listening to a poem written nearly one hundred years ago give voice to the past? 
• How does the content of the poem give voice to the poet's past? 

Further Reading:

Brett Vogelsinger is a ninth-grade English teacher at Holicong Middle School in Bucks County, PA.  He is the faculty adviser for the school literary magazine, Sevenatenine.  Besides his annual blogging adventure on this site, he has published work on Nerdy Book Club, The New York Times Learning Network, and Edutopia and you can follow him on Twitter (@theVogelman).

Go Poem #12 -- Advertising With Poetry

by Brett Vogelsinger

Today's post offers two poems for the price of one.  Both are in video format, for the poems have been adopted by companies in hopes of making their brand appeal to the hearts and minds of customers.

First, we have Charles Bukowski poem "The Laughing Heart" found in a Levi's commercial.

Second, we have Maya Angelou's "The Human Family" found in an iPhone commercial.

Using one or both of these poems, discuss these questions as a class:

What does the company seek to communicate about their brand using this poem?  What associations do they want you, the audience, to make with Levis or Apple?  What connotations are they developing for their brand? 

What are your thoughts on using poetry for the purpose of advertising? Does it devalue the poem that someone besides the author is using it to make money?  Or does it bring poetry, framed professionally with images and music, to a vast audience, making poetry more approachable?

It may be worth noting that both of these commercials were produced after the death of the poets who wrote the poems, so someone other than the original poet had to give permission to use the poem in this manner.  If you were responsible for the copyright of a famous poet's work, what questions would you ask before granting permission to use the poet's work in a television commercial?

Brett Vogelsinger teaches freshman English students at Holicong Middle School in Doylestown, PA where he starts class with a poem each day. Follow his work on Twitter @theVogelman.

Further Reading: