Dr Billie R Tadros Assistant Professor Department of

Dr. Billie R. Tadros Assistant Professor, Department of English & Theatre The University of Scranton www. billiertadros. com billie. tadros@scranton. edu @Billie. RTadros

Free Open Educational Resources for Intro to Poetry: • The Academy of American Poets’ Poets. org • “Poem-a-Day “ Series • searchable database of poems • The Poetry Foundation web site • searchable database of poems • glossary of poetic terms • Tracy K. Smith’s podcast The Slowdown • five-minute podcasts about one poem, which air every weekday

Edward Hirsch, “How to Read a Poem” (available on Poets. org: https: //poets. org/text/how-read-poem-0): “Most readers make three false assumptions when addressing an unfamiliar poem. The first is assuming that they should understand what they encounter on the first reading, and if they don’t, that something is wrong with them or with the poem. The second is assuming that the poem is a kind of code, that each detail corresponds to one, and only one, thing, and unless they can crack this code, they’ve missed the point. The third is assuming that the poem can mean anything readers want it to mean. ”

Pete’s explication podcast on Reginald Gibbons’ “Hour”: “Using the podcast form rather than written format forced me to read the poem aloud multiple times to myself to practice for the final recording. This was not only harder to do than I thought, but also gave me some insight to use in my discussion of the poem. While I read the poem aloud, I gathered information that I did not have prior, and made me understand the structure and form of the poem more lucidly…. The podcast assignment was a very interesting and learning-filled experience, as I am used to doing financial equations and writing business analysis essays as a Finance Major. This was out of the box for me. ”

Elena’s explication podcast on Pablo Neruda’s “I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You”: “I am not always very comfortable with public speaking so being able to speak into my phone and start over if I really wanted to was a huge plus. I felt I was more able to share my input on the poem and what I found interesting, which made it all the more enjoyable learning about and interpreting the poem…. I loved completing the assignment and being able to pick a work of my choice to be able to explicate and discuss. ”