In this atmosphere, it was easy for the girls to be excited about writing poetry. On an almost daily basis, at least one student would ask me to be sure to leave class time for “free writing” as they came to call it. Some days, the room would be silent but for the soft sounds of tapping fingers; other days, it would be alive with activity as students ran to print out their latest creations and share them with friends, went looking for inspiration to classmates, books, or the view out over the school grounds to Poet’s Seat Tower, or called me over to check out their progress. On more than one occasion, more than one student asked if she could work into break, or stop break early to get back to work. They were writing for the pure thrill of writing, of having an idea worth sharing and people to share it with, and they were loving it. For me, one afternoon in Reading period crystallizes the experience. On this day, Alicia interrupted to say with some urgency that a poem had just formed itself in her head and she needed to write it down immediately before she forgot. I said that was fine, and periodically over the next fifteen minutes, one student or another would lift her head to check Alicia’s progress. Finally, she said “I’m done!” and passed it around for all of us to read, and the “I love it”s and “That’s really good”s carried even more emphasis than usual.
So I was somewhat surprised when it came time for the girls to officially hand in their first poem, as there was far more than the usual level of angst and anxiety. As I tried to guide them through the design of a rubric with which to evaluate poetry, I encountered stubborn resistance to the idea that poetry should be graded. Through the class period, I came to believe that their pride of ownership was so strong, their poems so idiosyncratic and personal that they felt any attempt to grade them would be like taking apart some marvelous toy to see how it works and finding the magic gone. In an attempt to create some sort of objective standard yet retain each poet’s dignity and authority, the final poetry rubric they agreed on includes “Author’s intent” as a topic, and within other topics criteria like “Unity of ideas and purpose (if there is a purpose)” and “If a form is chosen, adheres well to form.” Even within the topic of “Mechanics,” they deferred to the individual poet’s ultimate authority, listing as the second criterion “Spelling, mechanics match author’s intent.” This rubric would allow for an unbelievable variety of form and voice, yet require each girl to have some sort of rational explanation for what she had written.
All their experience sharing, reading, writing, listening to and discussing poetry coalesced Monday night in the First Annual Poetry Slam. More of a traditional reading than a true Slam, the evening featured all ten girls reading from one to seven of their poems, with some choosing to supplement their own work with that of published poets. It had much of the feel of our morning read-alouds, where the enthusiasm of many girls caused them to read “just one more” poem. One student wrote a new poem that afternoon and included it that evening. The topics ranged from wanting to see a moose, to death, to friendship, to the impermanence of chalkboard writing, to standing up for yourself… almost as many topics as there were poems. The students’ voices rang out with strength and clarity and the same uncompromising pride of ownership they had brought to our poetry rubric design. One of the last two poems presented, written by Kate, ended with this line which sums up the evening, the poetry unit, and, in a way, our whole fall term:
“And this is not an almost.”
