Acknowledgement: This article appeared in WELL Newsletter No. 8 (June, 2000).　For information about WELL, feel free to contact the author at: janenakagawa@yahoo.com

Why do Japanese students of English enjoy poetry? I don't know the answer, but students have praised our class poetry lessons. One reason may be because I choose short poems; these may be less daunting to work with than a long article, for example. Another reason is that poetry provides stimulating content as it gives students a "problem" to puzzle over. Also, students are already familiar with many Japanese language poets, so poetry is not, of course, a "foreign" genre. Finally, poetry is emotive and shows the English language in elegant use; perhaps it is far more exciting and memorable than, say, a grammar lesson. I found that my ESL students in the U.S. also enjoyed poetry, and some students claimed that through our lessons they discovered that English was "a beautiful language." Additionally, in both Japan and the U.S., students reported enjoying reading and hearing poems read dramatically out loud, as well as composing their own creative works.

I'd like to share a handful of short poems which I've used at low intermediate level and above in university English classes in Japan. (For more poems, feel free to contact me.)

The poem below is written in fairly easy English:

Homage to My Hips by Lucille Clifton

these hips are big hips.
they need space to
move around in.
they don't fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.

they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.

these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top!

I have had students read the poem above and discuss it in groups. Students were asked to discuss the significance of "hips," what was special about these hips, and also discuss their own questions. Pre-reading, I merely explained what an "homage" was and also taught students the English word "ode" as a form of poetry writing. The terms "petty" and "enslaved" can be explained by the teacher, or students can use dictionaries. A teacher might also choose to point out, either pre- or post-reading that "enslaved" might have a special significance for the writer due to the fact she is African American. (One reason of course to opt for a post-reading explanation is to avoid limiting the students' initial interpretations.)

For homework, I asked students to do an imitative poem of similar length. Students were given these ideas:
a) Write an homage (ode) to a part of your body. For example, tell where your feet have taken you, what your eyes have seen, what your hands can do.
b) Choose a part of your body that you don't like and write about it as if you love it.
c) Write a different kind of ode: to a person, place or thing. Be sure to exaggerate the positive qualities of what you are paying homage to.
Idea "b" came from the fact that in the poem Clifton pays homage to "big" hips and large hips aren't traditionally, I believe, considered attractive for American women. You can find a similar (to idea (b)) writing trick in Goldberg's excellent and Buddhism-inspired book "Writing Down the Bones," portions of which I have used quite often in university classes. (Of special note are Goldberg' s mini-chapters "A List of Topics for Writing Practice" and "Trouble with the Editor"; the former chapter I've given out as journal writing ideas, and the latter to build writer confidence.)

The above poem, the 3 directly below, and biographical info about the poet (which you can share with students or ask them to find) can all be found at: http://www.poets.org/lit/poet/lcliffst.htm

Cutting Greens by Lucille Clifton

curling them around
i hold their bodies in obscene embrace
thinking of everything but kinship.
collards and kale
strain against each other
away from my kissmaking hand and
the iron bedpot.
the pot is black.
the cutting board is black,

my hand,
and just for a minute
the greens roll black under the knife,
and the kitchen twists dark on its spine
and i taste in my natural appetite
the bond of live things everywhere.

wishes for sons by Lucille Clifton

i wish them cramps.
i wish them a strange town
and the last tampon.
i wish them no 7-11.

i wish them one week early
and wearing a white skirt.
i wish them one week late.

later i wish them hot flashes
and clots like you
wouldn't believe. let the
flashes come when they
meet someone special.
let the clots come
when they want to.

let them think they have accepted
arrogance in the universe,
then bring them to gynecologists
not unlike themselves.

Miss Rosie by Lucille Clifton

When I watch you
wrapped up like garbage
sitting, surrounded by the smell
of too old potato peels
or
when I watch you

in your old man's shoes
with the little toe cut out
sitting, waiting for your mind
like next week's grocery
I say
when I watch you
you wet brown bag of a woman

who used to be the best looking gal in Georgia
used to be called the Georgia Rose
I stand up
through your destruction
I stand up

For me, Miss Rosie is a particularly powerful poem; I actually cried the first time I read it. All of these poems can lead to lively student discussions as students, talking in groups, attempt to solve the "puzzles" that poetry offers us. What is the poem about? Who is speaking? Where/when might the action in the poem have taken place? Students can also discuss the words and imagery and how it makes them feel. It will usually take non-native English students much longer than native speakers to "unravel" poems, so I allow ample time. Some students comment that "feelings" are transmitted even when a full understanding is not. I recommend having students work in groups for comprehension/interpretative activities because the ideas produced will be greater/richer.

Some ideas for useful approaches to poetry for EFL/ESL students can be found in Connie Shoemaker's "Write in the Corner Where You Are" (see pp. 123-124; she uses an example of a short story, but her steps are equally applicable to poems). In Shoemaker's book there is also what has been for my classes an excellent exercise to make students aware of and create metaphors (pp. 42-45). I often have students do such exercises (i.e. composing metaphors) before attempting the writing of poems. Another exercise that I use before having students compose entirely original poems is to have students complete actual poems that they receive in cloze form. Students compare their completed "compositions" with each other, and also sometimes later with the original work, noting similarities and differences. (For example cloze poem exercises, contact me by email @ vf2j-nkgw@asahi-net.or.jp)

I've also had success with having students collaborate on poems. One such pair exercise is explained in the Holmes article "Puzzle poetry" (see reference, below). In this activity, students choose words and phrases at random from a set and write a poem together by passing a sheet of paper back and forth, adding to what the other has just written, until the pair decides the poem is complete (or the time is up!).

In feminist and/or global issues classrooms, students can analyze poems in terms of what they appear to say about gender roles, social problems, etc. For example, with women's poetry, themes might be culled from "domestic" realms (such as in "Cutting Greens" above) or be gender-specific in the manner of "wishes for sons".

A few possible writing exercises to accompany the three Clifton poems (above) are:

a) Cutting Greens: students write a poem about a vegetable, other food, or object which they invest with greater than usual significance.
b) Wishes for sons: Students write a poem about their wishes for someone else (what they wish their mother/lover/friend etc. or group of people would do, or something they would like have done to them!; or, wishes for the future; wishes for the world etc.). Or write a poem with clear references to the writer's gender. Or, males write from the point of view of females and the reverse.
c) Miss Rosie: Students write about someone they know: how the person was before and how they have changed. Or writers merely imitate the poem's structure using whatever content they wish.

The following poem can be found in the book "100 Great Poems by Women":

Rush Hour by Thylias Moss

He boards the train downtown,
same time I get on in Lee Heights.

Eastbound passes westbound.
Can't pick him out,

square-shouldered every one of them,
under 40 years old, over 40 thousand a year,

never glancing up from their papers
till they pass Quincy, Central Avenue's

gutted brownstones, record and head shops,
Joe D's Tavern where I rent the back room.

He's ashamed of what we have in common.
I just left his house. Spotless.

As an example lesson, after having read the poem above, I would ask students to discuss questions such as the following in groups.

a) Where and when does the action in this poem take place?
b) What do the following mean: square-shouldered; over 40 thousand a year; gutted brownstones; head shops; tavern; to leave a house spotless ?
c) Who are the "I", "him," "he", and "they" in the poem?
d) What is the speaker's (the "I" in the poem) job and where does s/he live?
e) What is the meaning of the second to the last line?
f) What is the significance of the title of the poem?

After giving ample time, I would call on groups to tell the class their answers, by having randomly chosen group spokespersons, for example, report orally or write an answer to one of the questions on the blackboard. Groups would then compare the blackboard (or orally reported) answers with their own, followed by a whole-class discussion of the students' observations. Once students have gotten a hold of the poem's basics, they can then go on to a probably far more fascinating discussion of the themes/images/technique/structure (etc.) of the poem.

Moss' poem can be compared with Langston Hughes' poem, "Subway Rush Hour" (available in Rampersad, 1994 and elsewhere):

Mingled
breath and smell
so close
mingled
black and white
so near
no room for fear.

Poems with overtly political content such as the above are often, in my experience, excellent prompts for journal writing and other activities.

Another poem among many which I've used successfully is the following one. This is perhaps appropriate only for fairly advanced level English students, whose first task may be merely to decipher the "story" in the poem--not an easy task for non-native speakers. The poem can be found in the (in my view excellent) British literary journal Stand Magazine, Winter, 1998 (vol. 40--this particular issue contains several exemplary poems by women writing on sociopolitical issues/events in various parts of the world):

luby's cafeteria, killeen, tx　by　Jane Eaton Hamilton

he hated women it was simple an explanation it was evidence he was
a loner you know the sort of guy we all know the sort of guy
that's why we don't walk the night streets

nobody stopped to say oh maybe I'll be gunned down if I eat there
thanks anyhow I'll take a bagged lunch to work thanks again
cafeterias mid-day give me the willies

fluke you say nuts crazy wacko women are basically safe he just
lost it he wanted to make a statement (on the bodies of women) I
am covered in graffiti footprints of fear and blood and what it's
like to live hunted

it's true we've gone places into boardrooms into factories into
nurseries with your children into engineering departments into
cafeterias but

one woman with red hair was raising a blueberry muffin to her lips
and another was sipping coffee with extra sugar she didn't like milk

[Note: for more information on Jane Eaton Hamilton's publications, please see her website at http://www.janeeatonhamilton.com]

My fairly advanced class needed time to decipher who the "he" was, who the two women were, and what had happened in the cafeteria (not to mention the "we" in the 4th stanza). This poem is not only moving and powerful, but also can provoke much class discussion. Also it can be an excellent model on which to base an imitative work (for example, a poem which reports on a story in the news).

To conclude, in my own courses, I have found students highly interested in, if not moved by, poetry. I especially like using poems written by members of groups traditionally socially disadvantaged (e.g.,women, African Americans, Native Americans) and/or by non-Westerners (e.g. translated works, works chosen from international anthologies such as Cosman et al, or anthologies focused on a particular geographical area such as that of Behl and Nicholls--see references below) because I want to include such (lesser heard) voices in the classroom. When given a choice for reading and writing projects, many of my students voluntarily choose English poetry as a project focus, and many choose female poets; for example, just this month I had four students choose different poems by Adrienne Rich to analyze and report on, a poet I had not introduced them to. Some choose to translate Japanese poetry and/or explain it to a non-Japanese audience.

Poetry in English is abundant on the world wide web, and even in some Japanese university libraries as it is the object of study for many a Japanese English literature major. I encourage ESOL teachers, in Japan or elsewhere, to experiment with it in the classroom as I have.

Poet and language teacher Jane Joritz Nakagawa's research interests are literature (especially post-modern experimental poetry), cooperative learning, global education, and the rock band Suede.

Books and arrticles cited:

Aditya Behl and David Nicholls (eds). 1992. The penguin new writing in India. London: Penguin.
Carol Cosman, et al. 　1978. The penguin book of women poets. London: Penguin.
Dick Holmes.　1999. Puzzle poetry.　English teaching professional #12. London: IATEFL.
Natalie Goldberg. 1986. Writing down the bones. Boston: Shambhala.
Arnold Rampersad (ed). 1994. The collected poems of Langston Hughes. New York: Vintage.
Carolyn Rizer (ed.) 1995. 100 great poems by women. Hopewell: The Ecco Press.
Connie Shoemaker. 1985. Write in the corner where you are. Fort Worth: Holt Rinehart and Winston.

Some highly recommended anthologies:

Keith Bosley, ed. 1979. Poetry of Asia. (Tokyo: Weatherhill).
Geoffrey Bownas and Anthony Thwaite (trans.). 1964. The penguin book of Japanese verse.
Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris. 1998. Poems for the millenium: vol. 2. Berkeley: Univ. of California.

A few additional web sites:

a) Poetry magazine and author lists:

http://www.poetrykit.org/magsatok.htm
http://www.poetrykit.org/poets.htm
http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/
http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/mags/index.html#full-text
http://www.cas.usf.edu/journal/poetry/poetrylist.html
http://production.telecity.org/womansissues/CreativeandTalent/poets.htm
http://poetrysuperhighway.com/pshop.html
http://www.spress.de/reader/links/zines/general/info_sites.htm

b) Harlem Renaissance period: http://www.nku.edu/~diesmanj/harlem.html
http://www.langstonhughes.8m.com/cgi-bin/framed/3038/works.html

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