Monday

27 March 2017

— the kids still asleep

Good Morning All,

So, how many kids preferred our prose version of Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening? I can’t tell you for sure, since every class had a brown-noser or two who would be reluctant to chance anything impolitic as far as Teacher is concerned. But the one kid in 25 years who was adamant about preferring the prose version got what seemed to me a lot of genuine flack from the twenty other kids in the room.

“Hey,” he said, “what’s the big deal? They both tell the same story: a guy on a horse stops along the way from A to B to watch snow fall, finds it beautiful, starts feeling guilty about wasting time, and gets going again. The prose version tells it more straightforwardly than the fancy poem. So what's the poem got the prose doesn’t, supposedly?”

I resisted saying, “Jens, come pick up your 100 kroner after class,” but in truth I could not have asked for a better question.

While we’d been occupied translating the poem into prose, the kids got to spend a lot of time with and in the poem, but on an informal basis. They had in a way chatted with it, and as such were not feeling—or so I hoped—as threatened as they might have been had I sprung it on them as: A-Thing-of-Beauty-and-Mystery-They-Needed-to Appreciate.

“It probably won’t surprise you to hear, Jens, I think the poem has some merits the prose lacks,” I said, “but let’s not look at the what’s and the why’s of the poem just yet; let’s look at the how’s.”

Alas, I am going to skip most of that part of the lesson, but I’d spend a fair amount of time talking about the sounds of the poem, the pleasantness of the long-vowel end rhymes; the end word of the third line of the first three stanzas leading into the main rhyme of the next stanza; the way that “the only other sound’s the sweep of easy wind” uses alliteration and onomatopoeia to actually provide the reader with the sound of the wind in the trees; and not least the rhythm, especially in the first line, where the emphasis falls on: Whose WOODS these ARE i THINK i KNOW. I'd mention that  in either poetry and prose I got emphasis.

From there we often got into the mood of the poem. Here’s a guy all alone. The owner of the forest is not there. No one else is. No houses near. He’s having something like a conversation with his horse. It’s night. It’s cold. It’s the darkest evening of the year, which is not far from the phrase “darkest night of my life”, meaning the worst or most depressing. He calls the woods “dark and deep”, which are adjectives we normally do not associate with “Lovely”

“So,” I'd ask them, “does this poem make you feel alone, gloomy, depressed, fearful, or something like that?"

When most of them said no, I'd ask  for alternatives, and they’d usually come up with calm, peaceful, serene.

I'd ask how that happened. Were they not paying attention to the cold, lonely, dark images? 

Well, yeah, they'd say, but the sounds of the poem were so peaceful, almost like a lullaby. As often as not, one kid or another would get a laugh by saying the music was almost too peaceful.

From there, I’d ask if they suspected the poet of having any intentions other than sharing with his readers a particularly memorable moment. I was quick to say that sharing such moments and nothing else is a perfectly legitimate reason for writing a poem.

But might Mr. Frost be exploring some idea or other?

Sooner or later, a student would ask, "You mean one of those abstract nouns you’re always bringing up? Beauty and truth, courage, honor, that sort of stuff?"

Another student would say, “Well, he is looking at something beautiful. He does call the whole scene lovely.”

And another student, “So why doesn’t he hang around to enjoy it?”

And another student, “Because it says right there at the end he’s got promises to keep. He’s got obligations. He even says it twice, as if he is sort of reminding himself." 

And then they whole class breathes something like a  sigh of relief,  because they have solved this sucker! It’s a beauty/duty poem. The poet is telling them—pretty much like their parents—there is some time for beauty, for fun, but you still gotta do what you still gotta do.

The bell rings, and they go away happy. 

I go away both eager and hesitant about the next day’s class when we will be traveling a little deeper into the poem, as well as into an area any teacher of teenagers needs to think twice about before bringing it up in class.

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron