Talk Poetry with Kealoha

This month we invited slam poet Kealoha to answer a few questions about poetry and teaching. Kealoha has been a dynamic presence at our Award Ceremony and Student Reading, giving an energetic performance of his poem “Recess” and wowing us with his improvisational creations.

I know that you made a big career change in your life (from studying nuclear engineering to working in the corporate world to becoming a full-time slam poet). Many teachers want to help students develop their interests and find fulfillment in whatever they choose to pursue in life. Do you think poetry can help students tap into that part of themselves? How?

I think poetry has been instrumental in guiding me towards my path.  When we write poetry, we do everything we can to be honest with ourselves, unlocking truths that weren’t so apparent in our day to day lives.  When we express our desires, passions, and subtleties, we become more comfortable with them and can then work to make them real.  Some call it walking your talk.  I call it living your poetry.

In your experience doing workshops in schools, libraries, and prisons, I imagine that you use both spoken and written words by others. What are some poems that you find people strongly respond to? What helps to guide your decisions about the poems you present to young students in particular?

Truth is, I usually only use pieces that I’ve written because it aids in making a personal connection with young students and it demonstrates that poetry doesn’t have to be written by elite, obscure people that they don’t know.  I want them to understand that poetry can be written by anybody… especially them!!

When it comes to the pieces that I share, I find that there needs to be a strong human element for young students.  They want to hear something that they can identify with.  They are looking for something that resonates with their lives and lets them know that they are not so alone in their experience.  They also respond well to pieces that show a range of emotions — pieces that take them for a roller coaster ride.

Who were some of your great teachers in life and poetry? What in particular made them so influential?

The best teachers in my life challenged me to think.  They had great listening skills and were able to formulate stimulating questions.  They understood that teaching wasn’t about shoving their curriculum down our throats, but it was about empowering us to be proactive in our learning.  In all my education, I’ve forgotten most of what I learned.  The few things that stuck, however, were the essential skills of interacting intelligently – listening, asking questions, and speaking only when contributing.

Some people think poetry can’t be taught. What is your response to this idea?

I think it’s ridiculous to say that poetry can’t be taught.  It’s like saying that you can’t teach someone how to dance or sing.  There are basic tricks and tools that each of these artforms use.  Of course, once we teach these rules, it is our responsibility to let our students know that it is okay to break them.  Often times, this is where good art comes from.  This is when we create choreographers, composers, and of course, poets.

What I’ve read about your background and career change is fascinating. I wonder if you can say a few words about the intersection of creativity and analytical thought.

I love this topic, because I think the two are inseparable when it comes to producing good work.  The way I see it, each one influences the other.  Our creativity allows us to imagine the possibilities, while our analytical thought processes let us evaluate what we’ve dreamt up.  On the flip side, our analytical thought processes help us to understand the world, feeding into our ability to use our creativity to see it differently.  Since each one influences the other, they operate as a positive feedback loop.  At least, that’s the way I see it in my brain!!

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Kealoha is the founder of HawaiiSlam, Youth Speaks Hawai`i (2-Time International Champions), and First Thursdays (the largest registered poetry slam in the world with 600+ in attendance). In the 7 years that he has represented Hawai`i at the National Poetry Slam, he has performed on the finals stage 4 times (finishing 8th individually out of 350 of the world’s best in 2007).  Kealoha was featured on HBO’s Brave New Voices series presented by Russel Simmons, and he has featured at major venues throughout the world including the Schiffbau (Zurich, Switzerland), the Bienal do Ibirapuera (Sao Paulo, Brazil), and the 2007 NFL Pro Bowl halftime show.  He is the poetic vocalist for Henry Kapono’s “Wild Hawaiian” project, whose album was nominated for a Grammy.  Kealoha graduated with honors from MIT with a degree in Nuclear Physics, served as a business consultant in San Francisco, and played around as a surf instructor prior to becoming a professional poet.  Visit www.KealohaPoetry.com for more information.

The Collaborative Sentence Game

The Collaborative Sentence Game

OR

Stop Making Sense!

INTRODUCTION

This is an exercise for students of any age who say they can’t (or don’t, or won’t) write poetry. It would work well, too, for more advanced writers. I presented it to my class of blind and visually impaired high school students—bright, funny kids who can be deeply reluctant writers—as a grammar game. They groaned but were willing to play. By the time they had finished their first strange and beautiful sentence, they were so tickled by what they had done I was able to tell them “You guys are writing the language of poetry,” and they were having so much fun they didn’t care. They just wanted to keep making sentences.

HOW TO PLAY

1. Make long lists of good, colorful nouns and verbs, with plenty of prepositions and articles and modifiers: steal lamp I penny startle orange breathe when for tree is you the have to tiger if because sleep Lucinda nervous mountain with want and a sweater, etc. Steal from a novel or newspaper or dictionary if you like. Try to use words that appeal to the senses. Steer clear of abstract, jargony words like goal and inspire. Keep all verbs in the same tense. Use some small words twice, so there is more than one the and that and and and is and with and to and so.

2. Turn these lists into flashcards (index cards are a good size), one word to a card. (For teachers of the visually impaired, it’s nice to have large print and Braille on each card.) You want a big deck, dozens and dozens of cards.

3. Tell the students they are playing a card game. The teacher is the dealer. Students sit around a table. Deal everyone a hand of seven cards. Then turn over a card from the deck in the middle of the table. Student to the left of the dealer has to play a card that would help the first card build toward a grammatical sentence. (If a student can’t play a card, she has to draw another from the deck.) Emphasize to the students that they need not worry about “making sense.” Emphasize that a sentence can be grammatically correct without making sense.

Thus, if the starting word is When, the student could play a card that says you, leading the next student to try to play a card like sleep. When you sleep… what happens? The next student might play cheeseburgers, and the next fall, and the next in, and the next my, and the next heart.

When you sleep, cheeseburgers fall in my heart is an odd thing to say. It gives us a feeling, an idea, that we haven’t had before. It might even be part of a poem.

4. Read each growing sentence aloud as they build it. “When you sleep… When you sleep… What happens when you sleep?” Help them try to imagine what might come next; give doubtful kids possible words to play. “Prepositions would work well here. You could play the word in if you’ve got it. Or what about on? When you sleep on what? A bridge? When you sleep on a bridge, what happens? Do the wombats cry? Does Megan’s tooth tremble?”

5. The apparent object of the game is to be the first to play every card in your hand and “win.” The real object of the game, of course, has nothing to do with winning. Adjust or make up any rules to keep them playing long enough that they start to have fun.

6. Let students know that each word can be modified as needed. If the sentence says Lunch is, and the student wants to play drill, of course the sentence can be read as Lunch is drilling…. If the sentence begins with I and the student wants to play is, of course the sentence can be read as I am…. And let them know they can decide together what punctuation they need.

7. Declare the sentence finished when they have written an interesting sentence. It will probably be long and have great subordinate clauses. Write it on the board. Read it aloud in all its weird majesty. Listen to the kids giggle.

8. (Optional) Break up the group. Let the students vote on their favorite sentence. Have them write it out in prose. Then give them a few minutes to break it into lines. Let everyone read her version aloud, pausing noticeably at each line break. Discuss the difference between, for example,

When you
sleep, cheese-
burgers fall in my
heart.

and

When you sleep,
cheeseburgers fall
in my heart.

BACKGROUND

The exercise is loosely derived from linguist Noam Chomsky. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously, Chomsky says, is a nonsensical sentence that nevertheless makes grammatical sense. (As opposed to Furiously sleep ideas green colorless, which does not work at either the level of sense or grammar.) I told my students about this sentence one day, and they were intrigued by it. I tried to take advantage of their interest by giving them the chance to imitate it.

The game works for several reasons. One, it frees kids from the burden of needing an idea. No one has to have “something to say.” Two, it frees them from being judged. With no single author responsible, they are able to simply read, and revel in, what has been written. Three, having a finite number of cards to play (some of which—e.g., When you sleep—sound immediately better than others—e.g., When you the) allows them to work quickly, intuitively, and without anxiety. The stakes are low, the pleasure is high. Their question is What’s going to happen next? rather than What am I going to do?

A NOTE ON SENSE

Among the many meanings of “sense” in my dictionary are these: the ability to think or reason soundly; normal intelligence and judgment, often as reflected in behavior, and soundness of judgment or reasoning; evidence of normal intelligence or understanding, and something wise, sound, or reasonable. Note the emphasis on normalcy, soundness (i.e. not-weakness), and reason.

What kid was ever normal? What kid isn’t in some way weak? What do such weird, wounded, lovely people—powerless, as they are, to prevent the difficult things that happen to them and their families—know about being reasonable?

In my classroom I ask my students to sit up straight and speak in a loud, clear voice. I ask them to take words seriously, to take their own lives seriously. I ask them to take good notes and refrain from poking each other with pencils. It is desperately important for me to teach them that these things are not incompatible with their own singular, strange selves. Poetry is, among other things, a way of uncovering that singularity and strangeness. Poems are places where sense can be abandoned in favor of weakness and silliness and a funky, piebald beauty. Where language can be detached from the everyday, rational, communicative, useful purposes to which we put it, and it can simply be, shiny and alive, without rhyme or reason, just like kids themselves.

* * *

About the author: Nico Alvarado is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was a Teaching-Writing Fellow. He teaches English and Social Studies to visually impaired teenagers in Colorado.

What is Poetry? by Eric Chock

When I kiss my dad good-night
the rattles of his fat
shake away

When confronted with the task of creating a poetry assignment, one of the main questions teachers have is simply, What is a poem? Without having some grasp of this issue, the teaching of poetry is groundless. Since most of the general public has little interest in poetry (right?), most teachers don’t have much knowledge in this area beyond a few cliché ideas. And this is the heart of the matter: What is cliché and what makes a good poem are two opposite things.  All art develops standards of original form and content, and all art seeks to evolve in these areas. On the other hand, writing formulas (limericks, acrostics, 5-7-5 “haiku”) usually focus on superficial aspects of writing, not on seeking an original expression of genuine human feeling—and students as well as teachers soon get tired of these stock poems. So how can teachers develop a deeper sense of what it is they’re supposed to be teaching (aside from taking a class in poetry, which they probably should)?  And, can we expect students to perform to such high standards of art?

To answer the latter question first, Yes we can! Originality in content is relatively easy for kids since their minds are not rigid and their lives are so unique.  Dad’s belly is a new kind of rattle, he has so much fat it rattles, it’s easy in the imagination to rattle your fat—and it sounds fun! It bends your mind in a slightly different way.  In fact, originality or creative spark is the main ingredient that readers crave in a poem.

To address the former question regarding what teachers can do, one basic practice that helps teachers better understand poetry is simply to read and discuss poems.  In doing so, readers can gain a sense of personal likes and dislikes and a perspective on the elements that make up a poem.  It’s like food.  You may not know all the ingredients it takes to make a custard pie, but after tasting a few (or quite a few) you begin to identify what it is that makes one better than others.  Later, you can learn more about the process of making the best pies, but first it helps just to develop some sense of taste with specific details. Poetry appreciation is not simply being able to say which poems you like—you must also be able to say what it is that makes them work for you.

Start with basics like original imagery/content, metaphoric value, or original perspective on a topic.  Then, the focus is on what makes a good poem work, not on what a poem is.  To explore what is or is not a poem can be a far more complicated issue, and far less productive than simply identifying what makes a particular poem work.

Example

What works to make this a good poem? (Take notes to answer the question with specifics, not general statements about what is good. If your answer is that it is not a poem, have specific reasons for that answer, especially for what it should have to make it one.)

When I play marbles
my eyeballs feel like
joining in

Example

How about this one? (Take mental or actual notes.)

In my body
there are caves
leading to different places.
I see dark and nothing but dark—
and bones and veins and meat.
I am scared to be the dark
so I think of my dog, Pierre,
who died of heartbroken.
He is a poodle and is not
supposed to be alone.
I let him go and he walked
out of the gate.
Usually he runs.
I cried and cried and I
cannot forget about him,
my best dog I ever had
for a long time.
Now I only have my cat, Timothy,
who is a kitten but who wants to mate.
And that’s why I feel so lonely
inside of my great big body.
Nobody to love and care for.
Nothing but dark and death.
Sometimes, I miss my father
who left me in kindergarten.
I visit him in summer.
Now I am nothing to him
but a body of dark and blood.
I live with my mother who cares for me.
What else can anybody expect?

Now, compare what you’ve given as responses for the different poems. While you’ve been given elementary school poetry samples, the reasons and characteristics of poetry can apply, whatever the writer’s age.  Hopefully you’ll also get the chance to compare your responses with others.  Then, you’ll develop a sense of what elements go into making good poetry, as well as what variations in taste exist and how to respond to them. After all, as teachers we face a wide range of students, and we need to be prepared to respond to them all.

Here’s a typical list of responses: I liked it cause it was funny, the poem reminds me of my own dog, the style was good, I could relate to it.

Okay, this kind of reader response is a start, but these responses are too general. They’re too reader-response focused, not analytical enough about what makes a poem, about structures of language that function in specific ways to create certain effects. If you don’t know what I’m talking about here, take a step back and pull up the obvious answers all college grads should know. Poetry usually focuses on metaphor and imagery, in addition to the sound patterns that please the ear. There are levels of meaning, not only the straightforward literal level. The concept of theme usually applies to all discussions of poetry, and interpretation is required to explore the themes.  Notice, for example, how the humor in the initial example creates or focuses on a positive father-child relationship, and how this kind of thematic representation in creative form helps the writer to reinforce a base level of interaction upon which they can build.  Though there is teasing in the imagery, it reinforces the idea that the child can interact with the parent, and that child development can continue with this level of ease.

Also, in compiling the range of elements and characteristics that make up good writing, in practicing what you can say about a poem, you begin to see that there is no set list of basic elements that make up a good poem, and hence you realize that there is no one answer to the question of what makes a good poem.  Instead, there are numerous qualities, characteristics, structural elements, techniques, themes, and theories, and your job as a teacher is to be aware of how to use them in various combinations in focused lessons.  Maybe you’ll just focus on one element at a time, or maybe you’ll combine two or three.  In this brief introduction, my main point has been originality—which I view as paramount, whatever your theory or style of poetry may be—and which I’d put ahead of all other elements if you must rank them individually. The originality can be applied to form or content or both, but without it, there is less of a poem. At the same time, I recognize the value of simply getting young students to write at all, to gain some fluency and confidence in their own written expression.  If that’s the focus, I must be clear about my goals and expectations, and the value of the outcome. In this case, the primary focus is not on elements of poetry, but simply on general writing or grammar. Or, I often synthesize a technical exercise with a focus on originality, such as practicing simile writing but making sure that no cliché similes are allowed.

To summarize:

*Instead of focusing on what a poem is, try to focus on concrete elements that make a poem work.

*Just read a bunch of poems and practice identifying what elements or characteristics highlight the writing, and what thematic interpretations can be supported.  Form a group if you can, set a regular hour at a bookstore/coffee shop or at lunchtime.  Make it informal and fun.

*List and categorize the responses. From there, develop your own sense of what it takes to make a good poem. Prioritize your primary and/or secondary goals and objectives.

*Start with this online interaction. Post your responses and reply to others’ posts.  Enjoy!

* * *

About the author: Eric Chock is one of the founding editors of Bamboo Ridge Press, which last year celebrated 30 years of promoting local literature. He received the Hawaii Award for Literature, was a Distinguished Visiting Writer at UH Manoa, and is now a professor in writing and literature at UH West Oahu. For over twenty years he was Poets in the Schools Coordinator for the Department of Education, and he still does PITS workshops during summers. Visit Bamboo Ridge online here.