The Poet's Eye is designed for high school creative writing students (meeting daily in 40-minute blocks) to cover a period of one semester, or approximately eighteen weeks. National and state literacy standards have been taken into account in the writing of this unit, which are reflected in an interdisciplinary approach that combines poetry, philosophy, even physics into the mix of writing poetry. And why not? Physics sans mathematics is poetry, or as Gary Zukav reminds us in his 1979 American Science award-winning book,
The Wu Li Dancing Masters
, "Physics, in essence, is simple wonder at the way things are and a divine (some call it compulsive) interest in how that is so. Mathematics is a tool of physics. Stripped of mathematics, physics becomes pure enchantment." (p. 4) Therefore, the mission of this unit is to instill, activate, and recharge a sense of wonder for our students, and to offer them poetic form as a conduit through which to express it. As William Shakespeare wrote in
A Midsummer Night's Dream
:
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Guiding students to find "a local habitation and a name" for their searches, their dreams, their imaginations is the focus of this curriculum unit, wherein poetic form offers them the medium for self expression. In the process of finding their own unique voices, students will embark on a journey that will take them "from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven" on the sound waves emanated from voices past and present that had found and continue to find their greatest expression in the art of poetry.
Giving shape to "the forms of things unknown" will challenge students to observe the world around them as well as to envision their inner worlds. Perception, perspective, and introspection comprise the anatomy of "the poet's eye." The means by which these qualities will be introduced and skills honed will be through topical interdisciplinary lessons. From Kahlil Gibran's prophetic phrases to Wu Li (the Chinese word for "physics," which also translates as "patterns of organic energy"), students will be introduced to philosophical concepts as food for thought, and hopefully, inspiration.
