Teaching with Fire: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Teach
reclaim your fire\ "Teaching with Fire is a glorious collection of the poetry that has restored the faith of teachers in the highest, most transcendent values of their work with children . . . . Those who want us to believe that teaching is a technocratic and robotic skill devoid of art or joy or beauty need to read this powerful collection. So, for that matter, do we all."\ –Jonathan Kozol, author of Amazing Grace and Savage Inequalities\ "When reasoned argument fails, poetry helps us make...
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Reclaim Your Fire "Teaching with Fire is a glorious collection of the poetry that has restored the faith of teachers in the highest, most transcendent values of their work with children....Those who want us to believe that teaching is a technocratic and robotic skill devoid of art or joy or beauty need to read this powerful collection. So, for that matter, do we all." ?Jonathan Kozol, author of Amazing Grace and Savage Inequalities "When reasoned argument fails, poetry helps us make sense of life. A few well-chosen images, the spinning together of words creates a way of seeing where we came from and lights up possibilities for where we might be going....Dip in, read, and ponder; share with others. It's inspiration in the very best sense." ?Deborah Meier, co-principal of The Mission Hill School, Boston and founder of a network of schools in East Harlem, New York "In the Confucian tradition it is said that the mark of a golden era is that children are the most important members of the society and teaching is the most revered profession. Our jour ney to that ideal may be a long one, but it is books like this that will sustain us - for who are we all at our best save teachers, and who matters more to us than the children?" ?Peter M. Senge, founding chair, SoL (Society for Organizational Learning) and author of The Fifth Discipline Those of us who care about the young and their education must find ways to remember what teaching and learning are really about. We must find ways to keep our hearts alive as we serve our students. Poetry has the power to keep us vital and focused on what really matters in life and inschooling. Teaching with Fire is a wonderful collection of eighty-eight poems from such well-loved poets as Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, Billy Collins, Emily Dickinson, and Pablo Neruda. Each of these evocative poems is accompanied by a brief story from a teacher explaining the significance of the poem in his or her life's work. This beautiful book also includes an essay that describes how poetry can be used to grow both personally and professionally. Teaching With Fire was written in partnership with the Center for Teacher Formation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Royalties from this book will be used to fund scholarship opportunities for teachers to grow and learn.Library JournalIntrator (education & child study, Smith) and Scribner, an editor and program evaluator, have organized this book simply but powerfully to capture the relationship between educators and the poems that have become their inspiration. Text on the left-hand side of a spread explains where and why an educator teaches, while the facing page offers a poem that has sustained him or her through long droughts in the classroom. The diversity of poems is impressive; the poets represented in this book range from British, white, classic, and dead to recent award winners from all over the globe. The educators also come from diverse backgrounds, and they have multifarious reasons for choosing their profession. Although many traditional teachers from public school settings are represented, the educators also come from parochial schools, urban charter schools, Teach for America, and colleges and include artists in residence, principals, and curriculum directors. It is the pluralistic, inclusive approach this book takes that makes it such a worthy read. Highly recommended for all school and college libraries.-Maria Kochis, California State Univ., Sacramento, CA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
GratitudesxiA Note to Our ReadersxiiiIntroductionxviiHearing the Call1Bob O'Meally's "Make Music with Your Life"2Marge Piercy's "To be of use"4Pablo Neruda's "The Poet's Obligation"6Gabriele D'Annunzio's "I pastori"8Emily Dickinson's "The Chariot"10Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar"12William Stafford's "The Way It Is"14Walt Whitman's Preface to "Leaves of Grass" [Excerpt]16Langston Hughes's "Dream Deferred"18Marian Wright Edelman's "I Care and I'm Willing to Serve"20Cherishing the Work23Billy Collins's "First Reader"24Gary Snyder's "Axe Handles"26David Whyte's "Working Together"28Marcie Hans's "Fueled"30William Carlos William's "The Red Wheelbarrow"32George Venn's "Poem Against the First Grade"34Jeff Moss's "On the Other Side of the Door"36Lydia Cortes's "I Remember"38Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay"40Gary Blankenburg's "The Mouse"42Lewis Buzbee's "Sunday, Tarzan in His Hammock"44On the Edge47John Milton's "Paradise Lost, Book VIII"48Stephen Sondheim's "Children Will Listen"50Al Zolynas's "Love in the Classroom"52Billy Collins's "On Turning Ten"54Li-Young Lee's "The Gift"56Mary Oliver's "The Journey"58Yehuda Amichai's "God Has Pity on Kindergarten Children"60Jellaludin Rumi's "The Lame Goat"62Linda McCarriston's "Hotel Nights with My Mother"64Lucile Burt's "Melissa Quits School"66Holding On69Denise Levertov's "Witness"70Octavio Paz's "After"72Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese"74William Butler Yeats's "Everything That Man Esteems"76May Sarton's "Now I Become Myself"78Annie Dillard's "Teaching a Stone to Talk" [Excerpt]80David Whyte's "Sweet Darkness"82Rubin Alves's "Tomorrow's Child"84Donald Hall's "Names of Horses"86Judy Brown's "Fire"88Margaret Walker's "For My People"90In the Moment93Elizabeth Carlson's "Imperfection"94David Wagoner's "Lost"96Wendell Berry's "A Purification"98Marge Piercy's "The seven of pentacles"100Pablo Neruda's "Keeping Quiet"102Gary Snyder's "What Have I Learned"104Wislawa Szymborska's "There But for the Grace"106Derek Walcott's "Love After Love"108William Stafford's "You Reading This, Be Ready"110Edgar A. Guest's "Don't Quit"112Making Contact115Charles Olson's "These Days"116Donna Kate Rushin's "The Bridge Poem"118Seamus Heaney's "The Cure at Troy" [Excerpt]120Virginia Satir's "Making Contact"122John Moffitt's "To Look at Any Thing"124Jellaludin Rumi's "Two Kinds of Intelligence"126Adrienne Rich's "Dialogue"128Galway Kinnell's "Saint Francis and the Sow"130Maxine Kumin's "Junior Life Saving"132Gary Soto's "Saturday at the Canal"134Adrienne Rich's "Diving into the Wreck"136The Fire of Teaching139Wislawa Szymborska's "A Contribution to Satistics"140E.E. Cummings's "You Shall Above All Things"142Mary Oliver's "The Summer Day"144Ranier Maria Rilke's "Archaic Torso of Apollo"146Robert Graves's "Warning to Children"148Wallace Stevens's "The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain"150Langston Hughes's "My People"152@nikki giovanni's "the drum"154@nila northSun's "moving camp too far"156Czeslaw Milosz's "Gift"158T. S. Eliot's "East Coker"160Naomi Shihab Nye's "Shoulders"162Bettye T. Spinner's "Harvest Home"164Daring to Lead167Rabindranath Tagore's "Where the Mind Is Without Fear"168Barbara Kingsolver's "Beating Time"170Thomas Jefferson's "Passage from a Letter to William Charles Jarvis"172Robert Herrick's "Delight in Disorder"174Rainer Maria Rilke's "I Believe in All That Has Never Yet Been Spoken"176Langston Hughes's "Mother to Son"178@nikki giovanni's "ego-tripping"180Anne Sexton's "Courage"182William Stafford's "Silver Star"184Walt Whitman's "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" [Excerpt]186Vaclav Havel's "It Is I Who Must Begin"188Marge Piercy's "The low road"190Tending the Fire: The Utility of Poetry in a Teacher's Life193About the Courage to Teach Program213The Contributors215The Editors225
\ Library JournalIntrator (education & child study, Smith) and Scribner, an editor and program evaluator, have organized this book simply but powerfully to capture the relationship between educators and the poems that have become their inspiration. Text on the left-hand side of a spread explains where and why an educator teaches, while the facing page offers a poem that has sustained him or her through long droughts in the classroom. The diversity of poems is impressive; the poets represented in this book range from British, white, classic, and dead to recent award winners from all over the globe. The educators also come from diverse backgrounds, and they have multifarious reasons for choosing their profession. Although many traditional teachers from public school settings are represented, the educators also come from parochial schools, urban charter schools, Teach for America, and colleges and include artists in residence, principals, and curriculum directors. It is the pluralistic, inclusive approach this book takes that makes it such a worthy read. Highly recommended for all school and college libraries.-Maria Kochis, California State Univ., Sacramento, CA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.\ \
