Poetry questions

[deltagal]

Hi all,

This question may ultimately be for Carrie, although there may be a pp on this, as well.

I've been spending some time looking through my guides and thinking about poetry. Poetry is daily in Bigger, PHFHG and CTC. Then in the RTR guide it is one day a week. And it all looks good!

Will poetry continue to be a weekly option through all the high school guides?
Is there a particular reason poetry is daily in the earlier guides and then moves to weekly?
Will all the guides continue to focus on one poet?
What ultimately is the objective from poetry studies?

Thank you in advance for any input. I like to take sometime every year to think about what I'm doing and why.

[my3sons]

Deltagal - Carrie is in the middle of finishing RevtoRev and I'm in the middle of editing it, but these are a few things that speak to me on the topic of poetry.

Poetry was a staple of a Charlotte Mason education. She has much to say about poetry that is quotable, but here are a few favorites of mine...
"We perceive that the Son of Man is a poet. Is there a poem in all the world that so fulfills all the functions of poetry, which is so full of sweetness, refreshment, rest, illuminations, expansion, as that poem which bids us 'consider the lilies of the field' and 'the fowls of the the field' and 'the fowls of the air'? All poets see and know, and inasmuch as He sees with an unbounded vision, sees all the past and all the future and all the issues of life, how could our Lord not be a poet?"

"We could hardly do better than lead children to reflect on some high poetic teaching," for it is here that the young and aged mind continue to feast, providing food for moral understanding, reverence, imagination, and true loveliness. (Charlotte Mason, School Education)

"It is good to store a lot of poetry in a child's memory, and it doesn't have to take any work to learn it... Six times of hearing a poem should be enough to have possession of it... the habit of forming mental images is developed without the child even being aware of it. ... Don't start until age 6... then when you do start, attempt only a little. The poems learned should be simple and within his interest and understanding... There is so much noble poetry that a child can grasp, don't waste time filling his mind with twaddle." (Vol. 1 of Charlotte Mason's series).

Beginning with "Beyond Little Hearts..." (which is about the suggested age Charlotte Mason suggested beginning poetry), HOD works hard for dc to appreciate and enjoy poetry. Charlotte Mason wants us to work hard to choose good poetry that is well suited to a child's age. HOD does this by selecting simple poems within a child's own range of imagination, and making sure to choose noble poems instead of twaddle. After years of forming a relationship with poetry, that is first built on shorter poems, children are then capable of enjoying and comprehending longer and more abstract works, which is certainly the type of poetry included in RevtoRev.

I also shared my own journey with poetry that HOD has brought me on years ago in this thread...
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2767&p=20587

I would say that my love for poetry, as well as Wyatt's, has grown even more since the posting of that topic. For around 5 minutes a day, so much can be gleaned from reading poetry. As I read my ds's narrations and creative writing stories, I see shade of poets we have studied emerging in his own style of writing and think, "Our time in poetry has been time well spent".

In Christ,
Julie

[deltagal]

Thank you Julie for your thoughtful reply. I love the poetry assignments, as well. And although I'll confess my children don't seem to delight in it to the degree that your appear to, I have had such pleasure in learning about each of the poets alongside them. I have been pondering moving poetry into one of our family times and having everyone study the same poet in hopes that it might prove to be a more enriching experience for everyone. Hence my questions around this topic.

Thank you again.