One More Way To Celebrate National Poetry Month

National Poetry Month is coming to a close in only a few days. The quote above is from the1989 movie Dead Poet's Society starring Robin Williams as a teacher at a boys' prep school. His subject is poetry. Read a review here. There are several places where you can find the movie online. Use your favorite search engine if you would like to view the film for the first time, or perhaps see it once again. 

I think a teacher has a lot to do with our love or dislike of poetry. Note that I chose not to use the word hate, although there are probably plenty of high school students who might select that word over dislike. I must admit that I was not overly enthralled with poetry in high school. I didn't dislike it nor did I go ga-ga over it. There were some poems we read that I liked better than others. And yes, we did have to memorize some of them. I especially remember committing these poems to memory: 

• Sea Fever by John Masefield
• Portia's mercy speech in The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare
• The Destruction of Sennacharib by Lord Byron

Thinking back, I memorized all three poems in Sophomore English. I do not remember the teacher's name but I can visualize her--a 60ish, strait-laced, severe hairstyle, no make-up, no-nonsense woman who rarely smiled. I must commend her for introducing me to poetry that stayed with me all these years. No, I could not recite each of them from memory now but I do remember the opening lines of each one. She apparently did something in her teaching of this poetry that spoke to me and, hopefully, to many other students. 

Another poem I remember from that class is The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It's a very lengthy narrative poem but one verse has always stayed with me: 

Water, water, every where, 

And all the boards did shrink; 

Water, water, every where, 

Nor any drop to drink. 

Here's a way you can celebrate National Poetry Month--take a little time to look up some of the poems you read and maybe memorized in high school and college to find out if you can approach them from an adult perspective. What may have seemed just alright years ago could speak volumes to you today. Some of us have the attitude of who cares about those old poems and old poets? It's possible that these poems and poets have lasted through the years for good reason. 

I have enjoyed many contemporary poets but I still love those of old, as well. Ones that come to mind are Emily Dickinson, Sara Teasdale, Both Brownings, Robert Frost and many more. Who are your favorites?