Abstract
This chapter considers aspects of teaching poetry with painting from experiential, theoretical, and praxis-based positions. Teaching poetry with painting is a pedagogical approach with a long and storied history, but it could benefit from an updated discussion in the context of the twenty-first century and how and why we teach poetry at all. Pairing poetry and painting can be an effective method to enhance learning for any age group, from preschoolers looking at illustrated nursery rhymes to seniors living in nursing homes. Until recently, women poets and painters were seldom considered canonical enough to include on such lists. Paying more attention to women poets and painters, and asking students to reflect on why they have been excluded from the canon, can produce richer and more diverse discussions in the classroom.
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Notes
- 1.
Adelaide Crapsey, Verse by Adelaide Crapsey. Rochester, New York: Tha Manas Press, 1915, 35.
- 2.
Since Laura Mulvey’s coining of the term “the male gaze” in 1975, it has become a widely discussed notion referring to the (heterosexual) male-biased perspective in areas such as film, literature, and art. See, for example, A. W. Eaton’s discussion of the term in “Feminist Philosophy of Art” (Philosophy Compass 3/5 [2008]: 873–893). Eaton notes “three sorts of bias: (1) pervasive gender stereotypes and androcentric perspectives dominating canonical works; (2) an almost complete absence of women from the pantheon of great artists; and (3) a near total exclusion of women’s artifacts from the canon” (878).
- 3.
Ruth Webb, Ekphrasis, Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice. Surrey: Ashgate, 2009.
- 4.
For the background and history of the #MeToo movement, see https://metoomvmt.org/ and https://www.facebook.com/MeTooMVMT/.
- 5.
For a historical account of the rape of Gentileschi, see Elizabeth E. Cohen, “The Trials of Artemisia Gentileschi: A Rape as History,” Sixteenth Century Journal 31(1) (Spring, 2000), 47–75.
- 6.
Originally published in Crapsey’s posthumous volume Verse in 1915. Reprinted in The Complete Poems and Collected Letters of Adelaide Crapsey, edited by Susan Sutton Smith. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1977. 72.
- 7.
Haig Kouyoumdjian, Psychology Today, https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/get-psyched/201207/learning-through-visuals, accessed February 21, 2018.
- 8.
See, for example, Donggun An and Martha Carr, “Learning Styles Theory Fails to Explain Learning and Achievement,” in Personality and Individual Differences. 116 [2017]: 410–416, or Derek Buff, “Learning Styles: Fact or Fiction—A Conference Report,” Center for Teaching, Vanderbilt University (2011), accessed November 13, 2017, at https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/2011/01/learning-styles-fact-and-fiction-a-conference-report/.
- 9.
For example, among the twenty most frequently read poets for A.P. English in the U.S. are only four women (Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, Maya Angelou, and Carolyn Force), comprising twenty-five percent (https://stielaprbhs.weebly.com/20-must-read-poems-for-ap-lit-students.html accessed January 4, 2018). In the U.K., one of the biggest exam boards, O.C.R., published an anthology of recommended poetry from 2015 (called Towards a World Unknown) comprising forty-five poets, with a promising number of poems by women, twenty in all (44%), yet teachers tend to choose far fewer women than men from this list when comprising course syllabi (see e.g. the list at http://www.eduqas.co.uk/qualifications/english-literature/gcse/eduqas-gcse-english-literature-spec-from-2015.pdf, accessed January 8, 2018, where only five of eighteen poems are by women, or 28%). An example from Australia documents that “[at] least 70 per cent of texts authorized for senior study [in English] in years 11 and 12 by the NSW Board of Studies from 2015 to 2020, are authored by men” (http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/gender-imbalance-in-hsc-english-texts-criticised-20141123-11r5c4.html, accessed January 4, 2018).
- 10.
https://www.dorotheatanning.org/life-and-work/view/376/, accessed February 14, 2018.
- 11.
The painting is owned by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
- 12.
See also the article on this collaboration at the Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse University Library, https://library.syr.edu/digital/exhibits/i/imagine/section8.htm, accessed 11 January 2018.
- 13.
See the article on Guest at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/barbara-guest, accessed January 11, 2018.
- 14.
Anders Zorn, Bather (Evening) III (1896). Etching on tan wove paper, Art Institute of Chicago.
- 15.
In this context, see also the ekphrastic collection In Memory of My Feelings, a posthumous collection of poems by O’Hara accompanied by artwork by thirty artists (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1967).
- 16.
The Oranges collaboration was shown at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery in New York in 1953.
- 17.
“Imagine! Painters and Poets of the New York School,” published by the Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse University Library. Accessed February 22, 2018, at http://library.syr.edu/digital/exhibits/i/imagine/section8.htm.
- 18.
The poem citations are from The Colossus: Poems by Sylvia Plath, London: Faber and Faber, 1967, 58–60.
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Kleppe, S.L. (2018). Teaching Poetry with Painting: “Why Do You Thus Devise Evil Against Her?”. In: Kleppe, S., Sorby, A. (eds) Poetry and Pedagogy across the Lifespan. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90433-7_5
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