In my ASTU class, we have begun to start our poetry unit. We were given four poems to read, and we are now currently reading ‘this connection of everyone with lungs’, a book of poems by Juliana Spahr. The poems we have read so far were quite depressing in nature as they have a shared theme of ‘war’, which coincides with our previous readings of ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ and the Journal Article ‘Frames of War’ by Judith Butler. The first poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ was one that I recognized as it is a classic poem that is recited annually during Remembrance Day here in Canada. Other than that, the other three poems where completely new to me. It was quite interesting reading the other poems. Each poem had their own unique style and reason. One poem had the undertone of avenging fallen brethren instigating war propaganda whereas another poem critiqued the meaninglessness of dying for your country.

Poetry in secondary school was approached very similarly every year. It would be learning about poetry terms such as ‘oxymoron’ and ‘onomatopoeia’ and ‘metaphors’ along with types of poems such as sonnets and ballads and their rhythms which includes iambic pentameter, the most common type of poetic meter. After looking at some poems pulled up by the teacher we would then delve into the Shakespeare unit. In ASTU, the way we have approached poetry now has much more structure. Instead of learning about what was mentioned above, we now have a topic when it comes to looking at poems. When we annotate poems in class, instead of blindly looking for ‘oh this stanza is about so and so’s broken heart’, or ‘this is a metaphor for working’, we have an idea of what we should be looking for such as ‘this poem records individuality’.

We have also discussed the place poetry has in culture and politics. The obvious main point would be that poetry is a way of expressing yourself using words in a way to convey feeling that a normal sentence could not. Each culture has their own form poetry whether it be a traditional song or chant. It is meant to spread a particular objective. Poetry is used to move or persuade the reader, which would account for the use of poetry in politics. Poetry can be used as propaganda to spread an idea, such as the ‘In Flanders Field’, which spreads of the message of joining the war to avenge your fallen brethren. In fact, we learned that one of the poems on the list was banned due to it insinuating an idea the government didn’t want spread.

These few classes have been quite different than what we’ve been doing first term, which focused on graphic narratives. I say that poetry would is the opposite of graphic narratives, where words are used to express ideas rather than illustrations.