September 26, 2016
Ballads of Bottles and Blades
The ballad is a form that can easily sound antiquated and sing-song on the page. This is, of course, because “sing-song” isn’t a negative descriptor when describing actual song, and […]
December 17, 2015
A Last-Minute Shopper’s Guide to Children’s Poetry
Before my son was born, I memorized a poem. I know how this must sound to parents and non-parents: another hopelessly sentimental exercise that’s more about the papa than the […]
June 30, 2015
Teach This (Part IV)
[Continued from yesterday’s post on teaching Robert Hayden’s “The Ballad of Nat Turner.”] It might seem strange to teach the same poem twice in a single semester (particularly two weeks […]
June 29, 2015
Teach This (Part III)
Building off of my posts from June 17 and June 18, today I’m thinking about why I love teaching Robert Hayden’s “The Ballad of Nat Turner” and “Night, Death, Mississippi” so much. For […]