blueprints

144 | dana gioia
then memorizing and performing the poems ourselves. She pushed us to
achieve the same clarity of speech and emotional expressivity as the actors.
In that pursuit we failed notably, but we did improve greatly from our
mumbly beginning. More important, we loved hamming it up and belting
out Tennyson and Shakespeare. Within a few months she even had us compete
in a local speech contest. It would be hard to exaggerate how much
those late afternoon lessons transformed my life. Using the words of dead
poets, Sister Mary Damien gave me the gift of self-expression. Without
knowing it, she also nudged me toward a life of poetry.
using the words of dead poets, sister mary damien gave
me the gift of self-expression. without knowing it,
she also nudged me toward a life of poetry.
What strikes me about both these life-changing encounters with
poetry is that neither came from a book. They were primarily oral, auditory,
and performative. My love affair with poetry began not on the page but in
the ear and on the tongue. I experienced it physically before I comprehended
it intellectually. Poetry was also a social rather than a solitary activity—something
to be shared with family and friends. And what we shared
was primarily pleasure—a deep-rooted joy at hearing magnificent language
spoken expertly, perhaps even thrillingly, in our presence. (It was the same
sort of joy we experienced watching great athletes or fine dancers.) There
was nothing unique in my case, I now realize. This was the way most people
came to love poetry in the past, but in my childhood, such an initiation was
already becoming relatively rare.
III.
The guiding vision of Poetry Out Loud was to create an arts education
program that introduced students to poetry experientially—rather than
analytically—using memorization, recitation, and performance. Poems
speak to us in many ways, including intellectually, but much of poetry’s
power is physical, emotional, sensual, and intuitive. Those dimensions are
communicated more directly through performance than analysis. Poetry