by Corinne Hales
I am doing the hard, fun close work of reading a poem with my Intro to Lit students. Our textbook is our analytical tool as we glide back and forth over a powerful poem trying to get clear on how it works and why it works and what it might mean in our lives. A literature class that doesn’t aspire this high, ain’t worth it.
I have chosen Corinne Hales’ poem, “Power” to be my feldgang, my field walk. I will map it out over the next several weeks fully noting that the map is not the territory, but if you slow down enough you can feel the texture of it and perhaps get its measure.
The poem’s metes and bounds lie within the etherpad provided below:
Here I am reading the poem aloud:
Here is how I used the textbook to begin to analyze the poem:
Here I have paraphrased the poem:
Here is some of my analysis using the text book:
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Man. I love this post. All the visible thinking. A poem, then, for the poem …
My brother
placed my
copper penny
on the tracks
and told me to
wait, while
in our shared
silence — broken
only by our
breathing —
I remembered
the warnings
he once told me
about trains
flying off the
tracks, all for
the want of
a dare
— Kevin, smallpoems (you know it!)
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Gotta love locomotives. Know of an Uncle Walty and Miss Emily poem about them. That was the magic then. Apparently still is. Ever put a penny on a track?
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As I read this and previous articles on your blog I think of the case studies being presented in the Affinity OnLine book that #clmooc members are reading (are we “members”?) Not formally, but…
The type of thinking, studying, tinkering and design work that many participants in these on-line groups demonstrate is parallel to the type of work you’re demonstrating.
It takes a special type of motivation and inspiration and commitment to do this.