Macaluso’s blog post made me think about how I perceive poetry as both a student and a teacher. While in high school, I never really had much experience reading or writing poetry; basically, I had little poetry instruction in general. When we began a poetry unit, my teachers always rushed through the genres and literary conventions that makes poetry what it is. We were asked to read a poem, pick out metaphor, allusion, etc., then move onto the next one. Because we were basically thrown into poetry, I never grew comfortable listening or reading it. Unlike novels and short stories (which we read and wrote extensively), poetry was never connected with our lives. Macaluso’s assignment to listen for poetry in everyday places really made me think. She was able to write a poem based off of observations from a grocery store that altered how she perceived the world in her own way. If I was still in school, this assignment would have been very beneficial to my friends and I. Her professor made poetry’s accessibility known form the outset. Knowing that it can be found anywhere and everywhere would have allowed me to look at it in a different light and make connections with my own life.

I think these experiences are important to look at from a teacher perspective. As someone who is not comfortable with poetry, the idea of teaching it always frightened me. After reading Christensen, I discovered that there are easy ways to get students excited about poetry. While she teaches conventions and genre by having students write, she also instructs them to pick out symbol, emotion, etc. and see where they can find those in their own lives. For example, she uses a poem to get students thinking about where they come from, who they identify with, and who makes them the people they are today. I really enjoy the idea of pairing already written poetry with student work and I think it is a good way to allow students to view poetry as something good, rather than something evil. They can learn that poetry does not separate them from text, authors, and peers. Instead, they are on the path to understanding that poetry is the one thing we all have in common, it connects us and makes us more human. To me, the best way to encourage poetry in the classroom is to immediately implant these ideas into the minds of students.