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"If someone told you that they were interested in reading poetry, but knew very little about it, and wanted to learn more, where would you point them?" - Peter Howard William Carlos Williams worked marvelously well with 3rd and 4th graders (8 to 10 year olds). Taking my queue from Kenneth Koch, I'd read and hand out a few Williams' poems and, after a break, the students wrote poems of their own "in the style of" with some amazing results. What happened for the students was that they were empowered by the act of writing a poem, it wasn't impossible after all! Now it was personal. For high school students (13-18 years old) I've read Williams, Ginsberg, the lyrics of Bob Dylan and Robert Hunter, Walt Whitman, Ferlinghetti, John Weiners, Barbara Guest, Diane di Prima, Joanne Kyger, Denise Lervertov, Robert Creeley, Michael McClure, Quincy Troop, Amiri Baraka, Philip Whalen, Lew Welch, Neruda...the field is more open and the idea is to overcome years of dreading poetry. For people my own age (51 this Saturday)? I hand them a copy of Rumi or Hafiz. Showin' my age I'm sure, Frank *************** Frank Parker [log in to unmask] http://now.at/frankshome %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%