Torches of Darkness
Teaching "difficult" poetry to kids
I have a friend who only likes Neil Young’s album Harvest in October. Something about the mood works for her in the fall, but the rest of the year just annoys her. For me, when fall hits, I get a deep, nearly evangelical hunger to read D.H. Lawrence’s poem “Bavarian Gentians.”
D.H. Lawrence isn’t top of the list of kids’ writers, but some of his poetry appeals to kids’ dreamy, mythic minds. “Bavarian Gentians” is one of these poems. It’s not an easy poem, exactly:
Bavarian Gentians
Not every man has gentians in his house
in Soft September, at slow, Sad Michaelmas.
Bavarian gentians, big and dark, only dark
darkening the daytime torchlike with the smoking blueness of Pluto’s
gloom,
ribbed and torchlike, with their blaze of darkness spread blue
down flattening into points, flattened under the sweep of white day
torch-flower of the blue-smoking darkness, Pluto’s dark-blue daze,
black lamps from the halls of Dis, burning dark blue,
giving off darkness, blue darkness, as Demeter’s pale lamps give off
light,
lead me then, lead me the way.
Reach me a gentian, give me a torch
let me guide myself with the blue, forked torch of this flower
down the darker and darker stairs, where blue is darkened on blueness.
even where Persephone goes, just now, from the frosted September
to the sightless realm where darkness was awake upon the dark
and Persephone herself is but a voice
or a darkness invisible enfolded in the deeper dark
of the arms Plutonic, and pierced with the passion of dense gloom,
among the splendor of torches of darkness, shedding darkness on the
lost bride and groom.
We read it out loud. First kids usually don’t know what to make of it. They’re quiet, a little tense. I ask them what they notice. Usually they say something about the words “dark” and “blue” repeating a lot. Or they just say it’s weird.
We need a little context. So we talk about the characters and mythology it mentions. Kids, or at least a couple enthusiastic kids, tend to have a working knowledge of Greek and Roman mythology, so there’s a familiarity there. We look at a photo of Bavarian gentians, a flower so blue it kind of glows. We think a little bit about the inward turning of fall for people as well as the earth.
So then, when we begin to have a working understanding of what is happening in the poem, I return to the feeling, the wonder of it. We imagine using a flower as a torch to follow Persephone down into the ground. We remember times we’ve been in dark so dark we couldn’t see our own hands in front of our eyes. We imagine darkness as a kind of hug. We imagine lamps that give of darkness instead of light. We’re back into happy kid-brain imagination space.
We read the poem aloud again. This time, they follow it. This time, we turn our attention towards the richness of the sounds: all the repetition of “blue” and “dark,” the repetition of b’s and d’s in general, the moody ooo’s of the “blueness of Pluto’s gloom.” If they class has the poem on print outs, someone starts circling all the darks. We might get nerdy about phrases that repeat but change, like “lead me then, lead me the way.” Mostly we just roll the poem around on our tongues like chocolate mousse.
Then I ask the class to think of a story that resonates with them — could be a myth or fairytale, a religious story, even something from pop culture. I have them brainstorm a list of words and images that get at the mood of the story. We’re not trying to retell it, just collage its vibes.
Then I ask them about a time they felt the mood that the story creates. Have they ever felt the isolation of Rapunzel, the inescapable weight of Sisyphus?
The prompt is then to write a poem, using the story and your brainstormed images, but perhaps talking about your own life. Again, you don’t need to retell the story, just to reference it. Play with repetition.
This fall, I did this poem and prompt with my Young Writers’ Workshop, which is mostly 11-15 year olds, and again with another middle school creative writing class I’m teaching. The class responded enthusiastically, and lots of rich work came out of the prompt.
I’m planning on working with this poem with my 8-12 year olds in my Core Class, but will modify the prompt to be a little simpler. Something like writing a poem where a word or a few words repeat a lot, that mentions a myth or fairy tale. We’d do the brainstorm, but probably put less emphasis on using the myth to talk about our own lives. Another way I might do it is to present the big prompt idea, but alongside it present the idea of just playing with repeated words.
So that’s how I would play with this poem with kids. But I think the important thing is staying in a space of delight and wonder as we look at poems. It’s not too important if children follow the meaning of a poem or get its “point.” If it affects them — delights them, gives them shivers, makes them pause, even confuses them in a pleasingly way like a good mystery — then it’s connecting.
This is partly why I share poems that matter to me with kids, even when they’re more opaque. My excitement for the poem helps kids find their own excitement, even if it doesn’t illuminate the poem in a factual, narrative way. Sometimes we don’t exactly need illumination. We need torches of darkness to lead us to where dark is awake upon the dark.