Last year, our poetry unit focused on imagery and language. This year, we focused on form and function and looked at some different forms like sestinas and pantoums. Most of my students had some experience with the haiku as a form, but only two had heard of the traditional Japanese form of linked verse called a renga (pronounced“reng-guh”).This form encourages collaboration: one student writes a traditional haiku of three lines of five, seven, and five syllables, then gives it to another student who writes a “waki,” a response of two seven-syllable lines. Traditional themes for rengas are often about nature and love, but we were inspired by “Renga for Obama,” a collaboration of 200 poets curated by poet Major Jackson and published by the Harvard Review, as a way to celebrate, elegize, commemorate, and memorialize something we all shared: our classroom.
(If you want to inspire your students, I suggest you watch the doc-u-reading of Crossing State Lines: An American Renga, a collaboration of 54 American poets in a “poetic relay race”of ten lines each about America. It’s a marvel.)
For this activity, we used long strips of paper and spent the last twenty minutes of class, writing haikus and passing them around the room to someone who would respond with a waki. There were lots of giggles and threats not to “ruin” their haikus with a wacky wakis. Also, lots of syllable counting on fingers
That afternoon, I sat down to read them. Clear patterns and themes emerged. There were a lot of inside jokes, allusions to shared experiences, and references to a suspected ghost that haunts our room (referred to currently as Toast Ghost Malone). They referenced our third-floor perch with the birds, our view high above Lafayette, and the fairy lighting I have strung around the room. But also the theme of safety, warmth, coffee, creativity, frustration, and beauty materialized. Here are a few of their rough drafts:
Scribbles of pencil
Minds crowded with ideas
Angrily erase
The birds outside chirp on roofs
listening to compositions
Small, oblivious
the way we wish we could be
safe in the bright sun
Underneath the fairy light
the sound of writing pencils
Here is a safe place
hidden in coffee heaven
robins and donuts
Tucked away from the outside
creative machine working
Walker cracks a joke
Sarah loves Luke Bryan and trucks
Sarah Grace wants tape
Here we speak with Welsh accents
‘Welcome to Alabama’
The smell of coffee
Hypnotizes us to think
This may be a cult
Chanting, heaving, laughing sounds
Passer by-ers squint and frown
Toast Ghost Malone is
A sister, a father, and
Caregiver to all
He knocked over the desk laughing
Then stood over our heads, pecking
Where is my pencil?
Who took my pink princess pen?
Oh, Toast Ghost, not again
The ghost continues to haunt
The gentle end of March wind
All journals worn, torn
Pencils break with ambition
Coffee and tea stains
Wire bird cages, plastic
Autumn leaves in Christmas lights
Surrounded by books
A whiteboard full of wise words
Coffee mugs and art
Laughing through our deepest fear
Ideal conditions now
The bull inside my head
Open the gate, watch it run
Stampede, let it roar
Watch the crowd erupt with joy
Their screams are heard from miles
We are a safe space
On the third floor, oh the stairs
Free from harsh judgement
Laughing through our deepest fear
Of the mad poets in here
People think we’re crazy
They hear us screaming through doors
I bet they’re jealous
Of our own personal ghost
And kick-ass coffee machine
Blank, but untethered
Safely confused until some
Startling explosion
The caw of a careless crow
Perched outside our large windows
That great creative
Spark, in the form of a bird
Like a phoenix
A birth and rebirth in tandem
When every mind comes alive
Yellow world outside
Sat on a muddied rainbox
Stones now falling from our tongues
Each of us speaking our mind
Words full from colorful lands
Refuge from the world
Why I want to come to school
The ghost is pretty cool
Toast Ghost Post Malone stealing
Pencils and also fridges
The table thing was an
Accident I swear you guys
Stop mentioning it
I just wanna hang with you:
The cool kids, coffee, and toast
Toast ghost feel welcome
To our sweater vest abode
Please, bring disco pants.
Feel free to bring your own mug
We have plenty of coffee
But you gotta pay
Like twenty dollars, man, you know,
Pay rent or get out
Ah, not the rent thing, again
McDonalds won’t hire ghosts
We are safe in here
Wearing vibrant reds and blues
Refuge from the grey
The windows are frozen still
Please don’t come in here, we’re shy
Safety in numbers
Spilling community tea
Secrets always safe
Underneath the twinkle lights
The trees know all our sins
Soft orbs shedding light
On each other, igniting
Pens and crisp paper
Fire and lightning, knowledge
Truthful clichés, warm coffee
The warmth of being
Accepted by your peers and
Smiles fill the air here
There is only truth and joy
Comfort to be found in here
Teach Like Everyone's Listening 