Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Learning to Speak Poetry

Somehow it is just unfair to have such gorgeous weather, now that the school year has begun. I hope everybody had a good weekend, and your travels were safe.

I just stumbled across a book in the last week or two by local author, Alice B. Fogel, that I really enjoy. The book, Strange Terrain, is about reading poetry, not writing poetry. Understanding the voice, the choice of words, and the phrasing in a poem are a few of the topics that Fogel discusses with the reader. Fogel's book is organized in such a way that it can be used in an evening course, or a long term book group or semester class. The book is very approachable by a variety of ages from the secondary level on up. A district which has used Georgia Heard could easily add Fogel's work to their curriculum.

If you go to the author's home page, www.alicebfogel.com, you can see a long list of Fogel's awards and teaching positions. After speaking with Alice the other day, I think that she would complement very nicely a professional development day or conference that is looking to bring in local authors and speakers on the secondary level. You can find Alice’s book at http://www.alranbooks.com/Details.cfm?ProdID=8554&category=5.

Here's a question I have for those who read this blog on occasion. Is anybody using opposites when teaching poetry? I was looking at some of the work poet laureate Richard Wilbur has done with opposites, and can see much more room for fun with this type of poetry.

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