pedablogical

Poem 1: The Canterbury Tales

Apr 01

tengrrlBritish Literature, poetry Canterbury Tales, Chaucer 3 Comments

It’s terribly obvious to begin with Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, but it’s not here for the obvious reasons. This is the poem I think of every April. It doesn’t matter that I haven’t opened my Chaucer texts in years. These are the lines that I whisper to myself every Spring:

Whan that Aprill with his shoures sote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne;
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the night with open yë—
So priketh hem Nature in hir corages—
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
The holy blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke.

I never think of a modern English translation. A college professor had us memorize those 18 lines when I was an undergraduate, so they’ve been tucked away in my memory ever since.

I had changed my major to English (from Elementary Ed) by the time I met up with Chaucer in college. He turned me into what I’ll call an amateur medievalist. I would never claim to be a true medieval scholar. I just don’t know enough to wear that title gracefully, but in my heart, I am a medievalist.

Everyone knows (well, at least those of us who are English teachers know anyway) that The Canterbury Tales is a great poem for beginnings—the start of spring, the start of an epic pilgrimage, the start of a classic poem.

For me, The Canterbury Tales kicked off my love for all things medieval. Occasionally I daydream about getting a PhD in medieval studies. It’s not that I have any great desire to have a PhD in literature at this point. Instead, I know that would be the only way I could justify spending days lost in medieval texts.

It’s certainly the only way that I’d ever get access to a real medieval manuscript. I’ve seen wonderful facsimiles, but if I ever had an actual Chaucer manuscript on the library table in front of me, I’m certain I’d break down in tears. The idea of it even makes me weepy. I’ve tried to resign myself to the fact that it will never ever happen, but on the first day of April, as I recall the poem that started me down this path, I think it’s okay to dream on it a little more.

Daily Poetry Musing

Apr 01

tengrrlpoetry 3 Comments

If you’re a teacher, you probably know that April is National Poetry Month. It’s that month when we pretend that we haven’t been reading poetry all year long and for some reason we need to champion rhythm and rhyme. Charles Bernstein protested 10 years ago that we shouldn’t even have such a month, arguing that it’s about selling poetry books and not about loving poetry. It’s also about donations to (and prestige for) the Academy of American Poets if we’re realistic.

Still, the month is popular with teachers, librarians, and the media. Even TYCA is publishing poetry this month. You can’t escape the event’s success. You’ll see the poster up in your local library. You’ll hear the NPR call-in shows talk to more poets. You’ll see stories in the paper that hail local poets. You’ll pass by a table of poetry books in every book store. You will recognize that this is National Poetry Month.

Setting aside the marketing steamroller Bernstein says is behind the event, much of its success has to do with a key stereotype we hold about the genre. People tend to think of poems as short pieces. We think of haiku and sonnets—not epics. Once you decide that poems are short, manageable things, it’s an easy leap to throwing a poem into whatever you’re doing in April: start your April meeting with a poem, publish a poem a day, teach a poem a day, and so forth.

There’s nothing wrong with adding poetry. I love poetry. I know that I should revel in the notion of a poem for every day. But I just can’t get excited about all these poems people are sharing. I thought for a while that it was the commercial bandwagon of it all that bothered me. I’m sure that’s part of it. I don’t like poetry because it’s cool this month. I just like poetry, no matter what month.

Perhaps it comes down to the fact that I am a poetic hermit. Everyone else is singing Ars Poetica in the cathedral, and I’d just as soon be in my cell quietly contemplating a few favorite poems. It confused me as much as anyone when some inner voice firmly and insistently told me to write about a poem every day this month. I even sent myself a text message reminder: 

Today, I think it’s an attempt to give myself structure and voice again. I’ve been lamenting for weeks now that my personal blog is so empty. I used to post regularly and even had some friends who followed what I said. Now analytics frequently say that no one goes there. I literally get 0 hits recorded. The reason is obvious. I stopped writing. Commands were issued, and, as I wrote to someone yesterday, I shut up for the last three years. I was allowed silly status comments, but I’m not allowed to be myself or say what I want.

It’s not being alone with my thoughts that bothers me. I’ve always been a hermit. It’s that I stopped letting myself think. I stopped saying what I wanted and needed to. Last night, poetry seemed like the best way out. After all, I find myself in my favorite poems. So for the next 30 days, I am going to try very hard to say something daily. Maybe the hits will remain at 0, but in the end, I hope to have my voice back—and perhaps the courage to never let anyone shut me up again.