Hooted at, jeered at by the Yahoos of the street For my heavy body, cockeye, and rolling walk, And all the more when “Butch” Weldy
Captured me after a brutal hunt.
He left me to my fate with Doctor Meyers;
And I sank into death, growing numb from the feet up, Like one stepping deeper and deeper into a stream of ice. Will some one go to the village news paper,
And gather into a book the verses I wrote?— I thirsted so for love!
I hungered so for life! Involvement
The Reading of “The Hill.” The teach er introduces
the work by saying a few words about the author, the anthology, and the time it was published. This first introduction is meant to give a brief social, historical, and literary con text, and to prepare the students men tally for the work to come.
The introductory poem, “The Hill,” is read aloud by the teacher or a clever student or both (the poem is suitable for two voices). This poem gives the general setting through a description of the churchyard and some of the dead inhabitants of Spoon River. A com mon social frame of American smalltown life in the beginning of this century is established, and the poem serves as a first impetus if it is well read.
The Close Reading of a Poem. Each student is given
one epitaph to study individually. An instruction might read like this: “Read the text through, then read it again and underline all facts about the person’s life. Read it a third time and underline ‘strong lines,’ that is, words/images/phrases that you like, or that disturb you and make you think. Try to remember all the facts about that person’s life, since you are going to ‘be’ that person very soon. Try to understand why this person became as he/she was in life.”
This is an input phase, where the students must understand the content of the poem to get a grip on the life story of their person. They must study the poem closely to be able to find facts that they can use to present the charac ter. The Norwegian translation can help them to understand the informa tion provided in the poem. Interaction
Heavenly Cocktail Party. A possible introduction to
this activity might run: “The poems are epitaphs. You are all dead Spoon River citizens. Imagine that you are all in Heaven. You circu late and meet people. Introduce your selves to each other. Talk about your life, what people thought of you, what the truth about your life was. You may meet neighbours and family. I am there too as St. Peter.”
One of the purposes of this social “cocktail party” setting is to remove some of the seriousness from the topic. You may choose the “other place,” Hell, as well, but the important thing is to have a meeting place where every one can meet in a social context and use the facts from the poem in a free way. It is also a safe way to start, with all moving around and talking to one person at a time. New facts about the characters may be invented, but it is important to remain true to the epi taph. The first person, I, is used as a first identification with the fictitious character. The “cocktail party” set ting can create a relaxed humorous atmo sphere, but the talk is not meant to be flippant. What they talk about is
meant to be “deadly” serious and demanding; i.e., from a postlife perspective they look back upon their lives. It is important to stress that they should concentrate on the contrast between what is the truth and what is the official Spoon River opinion about each one.
This task is not tackled with equal cleverness by all, but gradually, through several “interviews,” this dou bleness grows clearer. This session must be carefully timed. It is fruitful to tell about your life two or three times; after that, it may become repetitive for the unimaginative ones.
This session also serves the function of an icebreaker.
Interaction and Interpretation
Creating a Small-Town Sculpture Park. In groups of
about four the students read their poems aloud to each other. Then they discuss and find one dra matic situa tion that can be depicted as a statue for the new sculp ture park in Spoon River. They may choose a situa tion from one poem or a combination from several poems. The “sculpture” created by their bodies may be either concrete or abstract. The main thing is that it conveys something important about life in the past. The stat ues are to be presented at the opening of an exhi bition celebrating everyday life of long ago. At the presenta tion, the teacher can be in role as Director of the park. One group after another presents their work of art while the rest make up the audience trying to “read” the intention of the artist. The audience may be invit ed to give a title to the statues.
The purpose of this activity is, first, to make the students read aloud to the others. They have to read clearly because the rest of the group must know the content to be able to discuss “what is a good dramatic situation that can be visualised?” They have to make use of “a language of negotiation” to find a suitable dramatic focal point. When arranging themselves into a stat ue, they have to describe, give com mands and directions, and again dis cuss to find the right physical expres sion. When describing the statues and giving them titles, they have to read “body language” and interpret a frozen picture. Teacherinrole as Director of the park can focus on abstract terms and help the student on, from gaining the concrete visual impres sion to forming a more universal interpretation of the statue. The students must first lis ten carefully to
poems read aloud to be able to carry out the more demanding task of finding a powerful embodiment of central ideas, i.e., giving a physical representation of a verbal situation and conflict.
After presenting the “sculptures” it is possible to go more in depth and use different techniques to let the “sculp tures” present their point of view. Interview by teacher, interview by class, inner thoughts, and interior monologues are all effective means to help the stu dents develop and clarify their ideas. The “sculptures” can also be brought to life by being permitted to move.
“Hot Seat” at Spiritist Meeting. About five or six
students sit in a small circle and are asked to look again at their first poem and concentrate on their first person. The following instruction may be given to the students: “You are all at a spiritist meeting. Spoon River inhabitants (your characters from the poems), now deceased, will reveal themselves through a medi um. If all of you listen carefully and ask leading ques tions, the dead inhabitants will probably tell you about important matters that you in this generation should remember and bear in mind for the future.”
This activity is supposed to function as a leadin to the writing task that fol lows. The intention is to focus on the link from the past to the present. By creating a setting where the voices of the past speak to the people living now, the universal in their life situations should come to the fore. This is also to allow them to go back to the original character from the poem and resume the role from the cocktail party. (They may have taken on other roles when working with the sculpture park.) This activity presents a real chal lenge, as they have to operate on two levels: they speak on behalf of their character through a medium; themselves, today. It thus becomes an illus tration of the doubleness of the epi taphs: the dead speaking to the living.
Model Writing: A Modern Version of the Epitaph.
The students are again asked to look at the original poem and to study it once more in order to find the universals in the situation, the conflict, and the charac ters, so as to trans pose the poem to today’s suburbia. They are to use the epitaph form and adapt all the universal elements to a new environment, thus writing a new epitaph for a new person in another cemetery of presentday society.
Response Groups on Written Work. The students
to help each other in improving their poems. In response groups they read aloud and comment on good points. They should discuss and read aloud to get the feel of the new poem. This activity is also suitable for homework; learners need time to think and reflect. They may need help to compress their lan guage to make the poem shorter and more powerful.
Publication/Presentation. The poems can be pub
lished in a class anthology or be presented at a poetry
reading. For a class performance, the students are
divided in two, with each half sitting on chairs facing the other. One after the other stands up and reads his/ her poem. This should be done sponta neously, with out any preplanning of the order; they just get up and read their poem when they feel that it fits in. In this way the whole class will become both participants
and spectators. The reading should be voluntary. If a
stu dent is reluctant, he/she should not be forced. The teacher will intuitively feel when the contributions have come to an end and the poetry reading should be ended. The purpose of this activity is to make the students “go public” and to let them share their own contribution with each other. This time they have a personal relationship to their poem, and the reading aloud is very often of good quality. The strict form of the epitaph provides them with suit able form where they can compress strong feelings. Students seem to cross barriers at a poetry reading like this. They dis cover that by giving status to their own poem, by read ing their own poem well at a public performance, they have really achieved something important. It is also useful to experi ence the tension and concentration of such a public reading. Do I dare to read my poem aloud in class?
CONCLUSION
The aim is to let the student become personally involved with a work of lit erature. They work with it from their own standpoint and their own point of view, but they are challenged to go much further. They relate it to their own experiences, but they gain a lot of new and exciting classroom experi ences. They become cowriters of a lit erary text, and create something new from the impulse they receive when meeting literature.
I include three student poems inspired by the three epitaphs printed above and the process outlined.