“They’re so orange.”

A selection of paints?  A pile of fabric swatches?  No.  This was Daughter #1’s comment about, of all things, a list of consonants in her poetics text.  We read aloud “b, c, d, f, g, h,. . . v, x, y, z,” and she said, “They’re so orange.”

It might seem a bit surprising to mention poetry in particular here, while so many of the topics are devoted to music, music history, and the academic advantage of teaching the Fine Arts.  But in fact it’s quite logical to mention poetry, because there’s no closer relationship within the Fine Arts than the one between music and poetry.

In my experience, poetry does not figure prominently in many homeschool – or other school – language arts curricula.  I was not exposed to much poetry until I went to college (as an English major), and it certainly would never have occurred to me to seek out or include a text on poetics in an elementary school language arts curriculum.  I don’t think I knew there were texts on poetics (though I should have), much less texts on poetics for elementary students.  I’m glad there are such texts, though, because our daughter loves poetics, partly because (she says) “there are no rules,” as opposed to grammar, which seems to her like nothing but rules.  More important, she has discovered the sheer joy of playing with the sound of words.

However, homeschooling can be an overwhelming endeavor.  Why, in the face of all that must be covered in an academic year, spend time on poetry – much less the study of what makes poetry poetic?  I’ve discovered many reasons to take time for poetry, though when we started A World of Poetry, I did not know what to expect – from either the text or her.

Right away, it raised my daughter’s awareness of how “right” certain words sound together, and helped explain why those words sound so right.  This in turn has encouraged her to make words “sound ‘right’ together” as well, to choose her words carefully – not just for meaning but for resonance, repetition of sounds, or percussive effect.

And poets may see things the rest of us miss, which teaches her to see and delight in things she’d otherwise miss, like the morning (see “Will There Really Be a Morning?” below).  And the amazing, precise, clever wording of a poem often makes us laugh out loud, so much so that some poems just memorize themselves.  The joy and instruction she finds in poetry teaches her to find joy in other instruction – instruction in subjects which, on the surface anyway, sometimes seem less joyful.

“Will There Really Be a Morning?”
Emily Dickinson 

Will there really be a morning?
Is there such a thing as day?
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as tall as they?

Has it feet like water-lilies?
Has it feathers like a bird?
Is it brought from famous countries
Of which I have never heard?

Oh, some scholar!  Oh, some sailor!
Oh, some wise man from the skies!
Please to tell a little pilgrim
Where the place called morning lies!

There are musical settings of this poem – songs – and I listened to two of them to satisfy my own curiosity.  Neither seemed to capture the spirit of the poem as my daughter and I have come to understand it, but they’re beautiful songs, nonetheless.  What will she think when she hears them?  Will it be like seeing a movie based on a beloved book, where the main character looks nothing like the reader has imagined?  I don’t know.  But it will definitely enhance our discussion of poetics, music, and the arts!

And once she’s heard them, I’ll be able to find out what color they are.