Most of the poetry we publish in Stone Soup is free verse. Free verse is the most prose-like form of poetry. It is very popular amongst adult poets and it is also very common in American schools. Free verse may by rhymed or unrhymed. What defines it is that it is unmetered. Walt Whitman was the American poet who popularized the form. Here is an example by Whitman. This poem is called The Noisless Patient Spider. “A noiseless, patient spider, I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated; Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding, It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself; Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them. “And you, O my Soul, where you stand, Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,—seeking the spheres, to connect them; Till the bridge you will need, be form’d—till the ductile anchor hold; Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul. As free verse, Whitman is not constrained by meter or by rhyme. The poem consists of two grammatical sentences, one for each stanza. I’m not going to parse the poem here. If you are interested, look up the poem in Google Books. There are many commentaries. I’ll offer you this commentary on The Noiseless Patient Spider for those of you who want to delve further in the poem. For my purposes here, I will just say that by choosing free verse Whitman is able to focus on other things — to say things he couldn’t say if otherwise constrained by form. The language is poetic — .. “till the ductile anchor hold;/Till the gossamer thread you fling…” This is not prose. The great 20th-century American poet, Robert Frost, rejected this style of poetry for himself. Famously, in an 1935 speech at the Milton Academy he said, “Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.” We at Stone Soup believe that this is a style that more easily lets children get someplace deep with their poems. If you want to think of it as Robert Frost did — then its a style of poetry that gives the young poet a handicap. It lets young poets focus on content and language but doesn’t impose an overly consisting of structured meter. Anyone with a free verse poem to share by a child is encouraged to do so in the comments.
Teaching Writing
Poem by a Child, Age 12, Published in 1913 in St. Nicholas Magazine
Poem by a twelve-year-old published in 1913. This poem, A Song Of Home, is a poem written by a child age 12. Originally published in 1913 in the children’s magazine St. Nicholas it is a poem from another time. The poem starts, “Oh, pretty mate of the crimson breast,/Do you remember your little nest….” The poem goes on to speak of the robin living and loving in the cherry tree. I think to better appreciate this poem it is helpful to recall that it was written when writers of natural history routinely wrote about animals, birds, and insects as if they were characters with human attributes. You can open nearly any natural history from the early decades of the 20th century to find engaging stories about the creatures being discussed. It isn’t science writing as we have come to think of it, but it is what makes even encyclopedic works like Dawson’s birds of California (1923) refreshing reading today. The engagement natural history writers had with the creatures they studied as characters in life dramas informs classic works of children’s literature such as Wind in the Willows (1908). I think it is in this literary context that a poem such as A Song of Home should be understood. I realize that the language of this poem with its rhymes and its more ordered rhythm can be distancing. I suggest asking your students or your child to close their eyes when you read to them. Read it a couple times. Let the sound of the language speak for itself. A SONG OF HOME by Evadne Scott (age 12) Oh, pretty mate of the crimson breast, Do you remember your little nest, Far o’er the fields for miles and miles, Where the blue Pigeon River smiles? Soon I know you’ll be on the wing, To the old home, to build and sing; To live and love in the cherry-tree, With tiny birdlings, one, two, three. Carry for me a message dear – A song of home – and sing it near The window where I used to play, When you sing your song at break of day. Take it back to the cherry-tree Take it to your nestlings three; In among the blossoms sing, In among the flowers of spring. Back to my loved ones, dear as ever, Back to the old home by the river; Let me burden your tiny wing With the memories I long to bring.
Writing Activity: Adapting Story to Film
I found a project through Twitter for teaching students to think like a filmmaker. The project, for grades 6 to 8, is written by Judy Storm Fink and is published at the NCTE website, readwritethink.org. The project title is You Know the Movie is Coming—Now What?. This is a complex project with lots of supplementary material. As someone who sees very few movies I think that the ability to teach this as written would depend in part your own familiarity with the books and movies discussed. Some experience as a filmmaker would also be helpful. That said, this is a well thought out project which will, at the least, offer you lots of ideas for getting your students to think about the difference between telling a story with words and telling a story through video. The hook for the assignment as Fink proposes it is that there will soon be a movie released based on a familiar book. Given how easy it is to show a movie in class I don’t think it necessary to tie this project into a topical new release. Perhaps my biggest critique of this project is that its goals are too narrow. I see this project as a way of getting kids to understand that thinking about filmmaking helps them think about the mechanics of storytelling in general. It teaches that your perspective as an author changes as you change formats of any kind, whether that is a change from poem to short story — short store to novella — novella to novel — or words to video. Along with changes in perspective that format changes entail, so too there are changes in the literary devises used to tell the story. Fink’s project focus on the technical devices of moviemaking. This is the project’ s strength but also I think its weakness. To teach the methods of filmmaking without being a filmmaker will be difficult. Two lists are provided, one (the online list) more detailed than the other. Many of the terms are complex in that they suggest a world of possibilities. From the online list I offer ellipsis by way of example: A term that refers to periods of time that have been left out of the narrative. The ellipsis is marked by an editing transitions which, while it leaves out a section of the action, none the less signifies that something has been elided. Thus, the fade or dissolve could indicate a passage of time, a wipe, a change of scene and so on. A jump cut transports the spectator from one action and time to another, giving the impression of rapid action or of disorientation if it is not matched. You could spend many writing projects on the ellipsis in a written narrative. The transposition to film is clearly complicated. This brief introduction to the concept lists five different cinematic techniques for implementing an ellipsis. Overall, I’d slow this project down, and simplify the exploration of cinematic technique. I’d work with one scene in one story and explore different ways — different cinematic techniques — that could be used to tell that story. In the same way, one might take that same passage and turn it into a poem which would make it possible to speak about the techniques of poetry as a literary form in the context of this project which requires students to think about the how of storytelling more than the what of the story. Lastly, making a film ought to be one of the possible products of the assignment. Take a look at our resources for young filmmakers pages to give your students some ideas about how they might do this.
