Ep 222: Can a Poem a Day Make Us Better Writers?

[Ep 222]

My most effective year teaching high school composition was the one I began with poetry. From day one, I introduced literary devices through poems, inviting students to spot metaphor and simile, hyperbole and imagery, rhythm, rhyme, and repetition.

With a focus on a single poem, we could zero in on just a few observations and they could use those as inspiration, even models, for their assignments.

Later, armed with a range of literary tools and techniques, the students confidently integrated those into their prose. Their essays—even their research papers—showed they better understood how to lasso language to express their ideas.

What’s more, they also readily spotted themes and ideas in the longer works we studied. They had more to say about the pieces we read. It’s as if poetry opened their minds to new ways of seeing the world, and in some cases, poets opened their minds to new ways of seeing themselves: students seemed to borrow words and phrases to express feelings and frustrations, disappointments and dreams.

Poetry’s Profound Truths

I believe poetry opened them up to become more thoughtful, creative writers—perhaps even more thoughtful, creative human beings.

And I believe it can open us up to become more thoughtful, creative writers and human beings.

When The New York Times news desk gathers for their morning meeting, they start by reading a poem. Marc Lacey explains that this new ritual is “aimed at inspiring us and boosting our creativity before we embark on another long day of editing the news.”¹

He says this new practice is leaving members more thoughtful, more contemplative. “I can tell by the faraway look in my colleagues’ eyes as we hear profound truths communicated sparsely and majestically.”²

His story sent me to a shelf in my living room in search of an anthology I might use to reboot this practice in my own creative life. Yes, despite the fruitful results from that high school composition class—and despite being steeped in poetry back when I served on the editorial team at Tweetspeak Poetry—I have fallen out of the habit of reading a poem each day.

Wordsworth’s “The Rainbow’

I plucked The Oxford Book of English Verse from the shelf, a collection I’d picked up at a used library sale.

It flopped open to a Wordsworth poem:

The Rainbow

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die !
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.³

A few of Wordsworth’s choices are easily spotted in this short poem: the deliberate repetition of “So” in a series of three. Unintentional repetition can distract a reader, but writers who use repetition with intent can assist the reader’s understanding. Here, Wordsworth uses it to indicate the beginning, middle, and end of his life: “So was it…So is it…So be it.”

Of course, we see rhyming throughout: behold/old, began/man, be/piety.

While rhyming is the norm in poetry, it reminds me to listen for and play with its potential in prose; where might I test subtle sounds to add music to my words, even blog posts and podcasts?

A poet of the Romantic era, Wordsworth responded to nature as teacher, as guide, as inspiration. He expresses a desire to never lose his childlike sense of wonder.

Creativity, Curiosity, Wonder

His poem—and his mindset—has potential to awaken our creativity alongside curiosity and wonder. He leaves me hopeful that we need not feel trapped and deadened by disheartening news. Our hearts can still leap.

As a wordsmith, editor Marc Lacey knows poetry’s potential to inspire our minds to use language in imaginative and inventive ways.

But he also seems to grasp the need for us to see the world differently and, perhaps, to believe our hearts can still leap.

The Magic of Poetry

Morrigan McCarthy, a photo editor and former poetry major, explained, “The magic of poetry…is that it jolts your mind into thinking about a subject or theme in an unexpected way.”⁴

Yes. The magic of poetry jolts us into thinking differently about subjects and themes and invites us into playing with language to engage the ear and ignite imagination.

Maybe I’m naive, but I like to think a poem a day can make us better writers as each one links us to minds that contributed to our literary history. For a moment in the morning, a poem invites us to pause, to ponder.

A Poem a Day to Become Better Writers

I don’t want to become so jaded that I lose my sense of wonder. Maybe a Wordsworthian heart-thrill view of the world is what I need right now.

Maybe we need a poem a day to make it through the confusion and bring flashes of clarity.

And maybe we need a poem a day to learn to become better writers, equipped to bring our ideas, our hope—our heart—to the page.

Resources:

• “How Poetry Shakes Up the National Desk’s Morning Meetings,” The New York Times.
• Every Day Poems, an affordable resource from Tweetspeak Poetry that delivers a delightful selection of poetry to your inbox each day
• Poem-a-Day from poets.org
• The Writer’s Almanac (read at the site or subscribe to email delivery)
• Energize Your Writing by Memorizing Poems (Ep 101)
• When You Don’t Know What to Say, Try Poetry (Ep 77)

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Footnotes:

1. Lacey, Marc. “How Poetry Shakes Up the National Desk’s Morning Meetings.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 Mar. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/reader-center/poetry-national-news.html.
2. Ibid.
3. Quiller-Couch, Arthur Thomas. The Oxford Book of English Verse. O.U.P., 1939, reprinted 1968, (p. 624).
4. Lacey, Marc. “How Poetry Shakes Up the National Desk’s Morning Meetings.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 Mar. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/reader-center/poetry-national-news.html.