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Teaching Poetry

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Maybe I shouldn’t teach poetry. Yesterday I was teaching Ruben Dario, one of my favorite poets, and I started reading a poem aloud, and I got so emotional that my voice was breaking and I had tears in my eyes. 

Before that, we read the mystics and the Golden Age, and it was the same thing. I can teach the Romantics because there isn’t a single Spanish Romantic poet who ever made me feel anything. (As opposed to English Romantics whom I love). But St John and Quevedo make me so emotional that I start blubbering in the midst of teaching. 

5 responses to “Teaching Poetry”

  1. xykademiqz Avatar
    xykademiqz

    Can I ask you something about poetry? What is “flappiness”?
    I ran across FLAPPERHOUSE literary journal, and they say that this woman’s work embodies the qualities they look for

    “We Make Our Own Ghosts” – A Conversation with Jessie Janeshek

    I like poetry but this stuff is completely impenetrable (sober).

    Help? Thoughts? What’s flappiness? Is it but a nice term for weeding out uncool folks like myself, or is there more?

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      I honestly have no idea. I only know flappers, like in stylish “modern” women of the 1920s but beyond that, I got nothing. I guess I’m not flappy enough.

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    2. anon Avatar
      anon

      It’s a made-up term from the founder of the journal. From a link to an interview on their submission page (http://sixquestionsfor.blogspot.ca/2015/11/six-questions-for-joseph-p-obrien.html):

      “SQF: What are the top three things you look for in a submission and why?

      JPO: Above all, the right tone: a tone which I describe as ‘flappy.’ (Sometimes other writers & editors at our zine use the word ‘flappy’ too, though I suspect many of them may just be humoring me.) ‘Flappy’ essentially means ‘surreal, shadowy, sensual, satirical.’”

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      1. Clarissa Avatar
        Clarissa

        Sounds a bit pretentious.

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  2. Demotrash Avatar
    Demotrash

    I wish I had an appreciation of poetry. I really feel like I’m missing out.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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