Today my students will begin writing poetry.  It will be intellectual chaos at first.  "No, you can't do free verse.  You'll get there in a few days.  But today I want you chained down by rhyme and meter, because it is the restraint that will allow for the creativity."  

Students will feel angry and uncomfortable.  They'll be hurt when I say, "That's too trite.  Try again with something more original."  Some of them will use cop-outs, like "How can you say this isn't working?  It's poetry.  It's up to interpretation."  

They'll become incensed when I tell them it has to be handwritten, in ink and then rewritten again.  I want to see the story of their poem emerging from the scratches and the scribbles.  I want to see words crossed out.  I want to see struggling over rhyme scheme and mood. I want them to bust out a thesaurus in a book format, because I want them to recognize that it takes time to find the right word.  

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The first few times I used a french press, it failed.  I didn't wait long enough and then I waited too long.  I put in too many grounds and then I put in the wrong amount of water. I had never viewed coffee as an artform. In the past, it was simple.  Take out a filter, toss in some grounds, fill it up and push a button.

But the first time I got it - when the french press coffee had that bold, rich flavor - I recognized the difference.  The process had been slower, tied so closely to my own actions and yet I had to work within the format.  If I failed to follow the steps, I failed to make a decent cup of coffee.

So, here's the strange phenomenon: like vinyl and crocheting and square-foot gardening, I know a ton of people who use a french press.  Not just because it's trendy to be vintage.  It tastes better.  And, waking up from the Cult of the Modern, so many people my age are recognizing that there is validity in recovering what we lost before dreaming up a grand future.

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When students write poetry in my class, we turn the netbooks off.  The iPods have to go, as well.  For awhile I'll ask for silence.  A few brave souls will venture out of their seats.  Perhaps a few more might even venture outside.  We'll silence the buzzing machinery and students will be stuck with themselves.

It's the same reason that I ask them to follow a rhyme scheme and think about rhythm and texture and mood.  I want them to see the melodic nature of words.  Like a french-press coffee, I want my students to recognize that following an older artform is not necessarily obsolete.  Sometimes it's vintage.  Or classic.  Or even old-school, perhaps.  However, sometimes recovering an ancient art is better than clinging to a mechanical, push-a-button approach.  Poetry should be slower than prose.  It requires concentration.  It requires learning the science so that it can become an art.

photo credit - silentsnake09 on flickr creative commons