100_2838Sometimes the first days of March joyously herald the beginning of spring with blue skies, sunshine, and the welcome beginnings of color – crocuses, daffodils, cherry blossoms and more.  But sometimes these days are gray, cold, rainy (or worse) still caught in winter’s grasp.

At these times, our energy may ebb and we search for something to pull us out of our melancholy.  Some find solace through poetry.

On her blog, My Head is Full of Books, school librarian Anne Bennett writes of turning to poetry – specifically to Teaching with Fire – and finding companionship, understanding and some relief from her melancholy.twf cover

In her post below, Anne highlights the poems in Teaching with Fire that “understand me where I am right now.”  We are grateful for her permission to share her reflections – and hope this will help others move from the melancholy of the lingering days of winter to the promise of spring.

(Note: For each of our poetry books, we arrange for the permission to reprint the poems in the books.  But we do not always receive the permission to post them online. For those poems, we will include the link to the poems – when we can find one – rather than reprint them here.)

Melancholy and Springtime:

Rainier GKHS

Sunrise over Mt, Rainier. View from the GKHS Library.

I have been feeling so melancholic lately. I am hoping this blog post will be cathartic for me.

Poetry seems to be the cure of the day for me. It is all I feel like reading these days. I keep picking up volumes of poems paging through them for some invisible fix. Maybe what I am really doing is allowing myself an excuse to cry. It seems like certain poems can turn on my waterworks better than just about anything.

Right now I am reading from a volume of poetry called Teaching with Fire: Poetry that Sustains the Courage to Teach. Educators submitted their favorite poems with a brief explanation how a particular poem has helped them over the years. Many admit to having the poem taped to a desk or a wall near their desk. I smiled at that picture because I have several poems pinned to my bulletin board by my desk. The book’s editors said that putting the collection together was a bit haunting since it was like witnessing a beautiful conversation between the men and women who teach our children and the greatest poets the world has ever known. The spooky thing is I do feel like these poets are talking to and understand me where I am right now.

In Lewis Buzbee’s poem “Sunday, Tarzan in His Hammock” Tarzan speaks for me today when he wonders if it would be OK to take the day off from saving animals from being eaten. Sometimes teaching is so exhausting. Yet, at times I can really appreciate the sentiment expressed in the poem “Love in the Classroom—for my students”, where the poet is suddenly bowled over by everything when his lesson on sentence fragments is interrupted by a kid playing a song on the old piano down the hall.

I know that feeling. A week ago one of my students asked me, in front of the whole class, if I loved him (not liked him, but loved.) I was pretty frustrated with him at that second for being off-task but all the sudden it hit me what he was really asking, can I accept him even if he isn’t perfect. “Yes, I do,” I told him, “I love all of the students in this class, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think you are being a Pill right now.” He smiled and said, “My grandmother thinks I’m a Pill, too.” Ah, that sweet, almost painful kind of love I often feel for my students.I am painfully aware that our world is changing and that students are having to run a gauntlet which has never been run before. That is why Walt Whitman’s preface from Leaves of Grass seems so appropriate to remember,

…re-examine all you have been told at school or church or any book, 

dismiss whatever insults your own soul and your very flesh shall be a great poem.

I have a strong work ethic. When I moved out of the classroom into the library I made a conscious decision to be the kind of librarian I always wished I had at my school. Sometimes my job is easy but other days it is just darn hard work. For this reason I have always liked this poem, “To be of use” by Marge Piercy.

Lots and lots of days it does feel like I am straining to move forward in the muck. And I always appreciate it when I can work along another person who is also in the mud with me.

Mary Oliver, my favorite poet, reminded me today that what I really should be doing is something outside. I needed to stop with the pity party and listen to my inner wisdom. These words from her poem, “The Journey,” caused me to stand up, clip the leash on the dog, and drag her outside for a walk.

 

So out we strode for a walk and, lo and behold, while I was busy feeling melancholy had Spring arrived! The street trees are in full-flower, the daffodils have bloomed, and everything smelled wonderful. See poetry did help me today! It reminds me of Octavio Paz’s poem, “After.” In this poem the person does all kinds of horrible things to herself and to people who have reached out to help. Suddenly there is “the humid, tender, insistent onset of spring.” Isn’t that a refreshing moment?

Oh, one more poem. In case you are wondering what poem I have pinned to my bulletin board near my desk at work, it is this one, “The Witness” by Denise Levertov.
 

We literally live in the shadow of a gorgeous mountain, Mt. Rainier. She is a large and beautiful presence in all of our lives. On a clear day I have a lovely view of her majesty right out the library windows. Yet some days I forget to look up and marvel. Today I remembered and she took my breath away.

Thanks for listening.

— Anne Bennett

My head is full of books

Thanks to Anne Bennett for allowing us to repost this piece from her blog: http://headfullofbooks.blogspot.com/

Anne is a School Librarian at Bethel School District. She is a secondary school librarian and an avid YA lit reader. She is married with two children, a dog and two cats and lives in Puyallup, Washington.

 

Question to consider:

What poem speaks to you at this time suspended between winter and spring?