6 Ways to Encourage Reluctant Readers of Poetry

Even the most enthusiastic readers among us can become befuddled by poetry. Leaving the comfortable land of prose with its capital letters that always begin sentences and end marks that always end a sentence is too far outside the comfort zone of many readers. And moving out of that comfort zone turns many into reluctant readers of poetry. Here are six tips that I have to help those reluctant readers of verse:

1. You don't need to know the meaning!

That bears repeating: You don't need to know the meaning! Now louder for folks in the back: You don't need to know the meaning of a poem! How often have you read a poem aloud in class and had a student immediately respond with, "I don't know what it means." Who drilled this into students brains? Who made them believe that they need to understand Emily Dickinson when thousands of PhDs haven't been able to? (Seriously, I want their names!)

Poetry is a walk through words--not a search for omniscient understanding. We read Dickinson because her words are a delightful puzzle that let us play in Emily's world for a brief time. We study a poem's rhetorical devices so that we may improve our own use of language. We read poetry because (hopefully, sometimes) it is enjoyable, but not because we aim to understand its meaning.

2. Poetry vocabulary is weaponry

There really is a reason that we ELA teachers drill terms like simile, metaphor, alliteration, caesura, and diction into our students. We know that those terms can help unlock the essence of the poem for students. At first pass, a student is unlikely to fully understand the poem (see above), but they can identify an image, the rhyme scheme, or rhythm of the verse and therefore gain an initial foothold in the poem.

3. Poetry is a spoken form of art

Speak the words! Poetry was always intended to be a spoken art form. So, read the poem out loud...and then repeat. Read it slower, then read it faster. Listen to how the iambic heptameter and rhyme scheme of Thayer's "Casey at the Bat" sounds different from Brooks' free verse in "We Real Cool." Just like Beyonce sounds different from John Denver, different poems sound different from each other, and neither Beyonce nor John Denver are best appreciated by reading their lyrics on the page--they need to be heard.

4. 5Ws and H

There's a good chance that your students have encountered the 5WH method--Who, What, When, Where, Why and How--somewhere in an earlier grade. For studying poetry with reluctant readers, I use the 4WH method: Who, What, When, Where and How (no Why).

Who is speaking the words of the poem? Who are the characters in the poem?

What (if anything) is happening in the poem?

When is the poem set? Is it a contemporary world or an ancient one?

Where is the poem set? Is it outside in nature or inside?

How did the poet write the poem? In other words, what poetic devices did she use?

5. What do you feel?

How do you feel after reading the poem? After reading Robert Browning's love poems to his wife Elizabeth, one likely feels love/romantic. After reading Whitman's "Beat! Beat! Drums" one may feel patriotic. Poets want their readers to feel, so validate what students are feeling. Hopefully, after they can identify a feeling, they can point to textual evidence for what made them feel that way.

6. Choose the right poem

IMHO, John Donne should not be inflicted on any high school student except those in AP Literature & Composition and he should be kept very far away from reluctant readers of poetry. Choose poems that are more approachable like Billy Collins or "Casey at the Bat." There aren't "good" poems and "bad" poems, but there are poems that are more approachable than others. Consider your audience and choose verse that is (hopefully) engaging.

Looking for more help to encourage reluctant readers of poetry? Check out my FREE resource on How to Read a Poem.

What tips and tricks do you have for encouraging reluctant readers of poetry? Please share in the comments!

Photo credit: Trust "Tru" Katsande https://unsplash.com/@iamtru?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash