Teaching the Terrified Tongue (Part XXXIX)

Patterns
Structural Awareness

Our minds seek out structure. As I began teaching writing at alternative school sites, I scheduled visits to sites around the city. Each week would repeat the pattern.

Teaching became a matter of gaining the trust of students so that they were willing to share their work. I could help students find space, in the classroom's public arena, to verbally express their urgings and concerns. The street vernacular mixed with the language of the classroom. Expressions of fear and pity in public served as catharsis and bridges of empathy.

One of the classroom exercises was the group sestina. I picked that up from sitting in on Bob Holman’s St. Marks in the Bowery poetry workshop. It meant patterning the group to play with six words, six lines and six stanzas.

Here’s an example of two stanzas from a sestina composed at Project Contact’s Lafayette Street loft.

“I’m pregnant, Ace,” cried Rosy.
“It’s all because of Ramon.
‘Cause he raped me at the Series.”
“I’ll pull out a pistol,” said Ace.
“And he shall be chastised
And be called Ramon the late.”

Ace said he had to leave, because he was late
for his mission. So later for our Rosy and for Ramon.
Rosy began to cry for Ace,
while Rosy’s mother looked for and chastised
Ramon. As her crying daughter Rosy
looked for Ace and found him at the series.

The sestinas may have been fragmentary and sketchy, but they gave the group an opportunity for structured play with words.