Today is my favorite lesson in Creative Writing class: we read James Wright's lovely meditation on nature, "A Blessing," and then my students attempted to draw the scene:
two beautiful horses in a twilit pasture and a man so awed by their pastoral serenity that he feels he might "break into blossom," but the lesson is that it's not so easy to draw a beautiful horse (as evidenced by the student examples)
and we read a few other poems that convey tone, including "The Second Coming" by Yeats-- and with this apocalyptic poem, I always ask them what animals would contribute to the arid anarchy of the rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born, the giant Sphinx stomping across the desert surrounded by indignant desert birds-- so what animals would fit with this scene?-- snakes and spiders and crocodiles and vultures and ravens, creatures of that ilk--
and then I ask them to list animals that would ruin the tone-- bunnies and kittens and panda bears and such-- and this led to some interesting discussions from the students as to what animals they are scared of . . . one girl is petrified of ladybugs?-- and another girl said, "ants are attracted to me" and then launched into several ant-freak-out anecdotes, and another girl said she hides indoors whenever she sees a bee, and she is also scared of moths, butterflies, lanternflies, and mice . . . and this really led me to wonder how these children are going to survive in the world.
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