James Wright, "A Blessing"

I've had James Wright on my shortlist for teaching since I started with Hands on Stanzas in 2003. However, as I tell my students each year, while I may return to certain poets with some regularity, I try to avoid bringing in the same poems, even if I have students in classes unfamiliar with them. (While the temptation is there to repeat particular poems -- call them favorites of mine, those with an addictive kind of resonance -- and/or poems that 'work' in the classroom, it's outweighed by the sheer number that get bumped from syllabi to syllabi.) I'd rather try out a new lesson and have it nosedive (or it's luminous alternative -- succeed beyond my wildest expectations) than pull out the same hoary poetry idea, albeit one that gets proven results. Teaching is a two-way affair: I am lecturing, after all, especially to younger children, as far as giving them the tools to begin working with and deciphering often intricate literary works, but their responses give me new insights into, and methodologies for teaching those same poems.

So I've finally gotten to Wright, and his poem, "A Blessing." Certain people have a strongly negative reaction to it (some are even professed fans of Wright), attacking its adroit melodrama and purple prosiness, but its intense earnestness could be what makes it such a teachable poem. An argument could be made that its intensity of feeling is a kind of naivete that works well with inspiring kids, but I think its unguardedness is a quality, an emotional plus, that transcends age barriers. Navigating its narrative to reach the poem's startling denouement -- its last three lines -- was a trek well taken, and while the concept that initiated the students' own poems might have been deceptively straightforward (and some of the resulting work superficial), the depth charges that combusted during our discussions of the poem itself were well worth it.

Once again, please read these Shields and Solomon student poems, and enjoy!