Reading Emily Dickinson's 'Blazing in Gold..."

I read the poem "Blazing in Gold..." by Emily Dickinson as one of our first poems to study. It's full of vivid imagery, juicy words and sounds, and works well for a young audience as the poem itself is a kind of riddle.

First we read the text just as it is:

Blazing in Gold and quenching in Purple
Leaping like Leopards to the Sky
Then at the feet of the old Horizon
Laying her spotted Face to die
Stooping as low as the Otter's Window
Touching the Roof and tinting the Barn
Kissing her Bonnet to the Meadow
And the Juggler of Day is gone 

Then we talk about what we notice. It's kept pretty informal. I suggest they can think about images made in the poem, interesting words, length of lines, length of poem itself, objects mentioned, rhythm, rhyme. It's just a "noticing" exercise at first. We don't worry about "getting it" or not or meaning or anything like that, to start.

Then I show them the illustrated version. (I made an illustration of this poem as part of my critical graduate thesis on close reading a poem.) After that, we get into the "exterior" of the poem (What does it mean?) and also "interior" (use of literary devices like alliteration and personification, rhyme scheme).

(I will have to edit this! Look for an update in the future!)

A Reading 2 Blazing in Gold Illustrated by bmadden714

 

Emily Dickinson's Garden: The Poetry of Flowers - a Power Point slide show

After reading Michael Bedard's Emily, we then take a virtual field trip to Emily Dickinson's garden.

In 2010 the New York Botanical Garden had an exhibit titled "Emily Dickinson's Garden: The Poetry of Flowers". Using artifacts from Emily's life, the NYBG recreated her garden in their Haupt Conservatory. I was fortunate enough to visit on the last day of the exhibit and my poet friend and I took lots of pictures, which I then compiled into a slide show with commentary for the students.

The students view the slide show with their commonplace books out and crayons, pencils and markers. They can take notes, draw what they see or not include anything form the slideshow, but I remind them to have them out in case they get inspired.

Emily by Michael Bedard

To start the poetry and science unit, after we have created our commonplace books, we talked about the poet Emily Dickinson, beginning by reading the children's book "Emily" by Michael Bedard, illustrated by the famous Barbara Cooney.

I stop at certain parts to check for comprehension. This is a fictional story and I want to make sure the students understand that this is realistic fiction, not biography. I also talk a little about Emily Dickinson's biography; that she didn't really like to leave the house, that she didn't publish her poems while she was alive, that she loved to garden, and, especially, that she has since become one of America's most famous poets of all time because her work was so different from what everyone else wrote at the time. I weave these pieces of information into natural pauses while reading the story aloud to the class.

I also brought in a collection of Emily Dickinson books for them to look through, including any small selected works (some of them are very pretty books), the collected works, letters, collections geared toward children--whatever I had in my personal library and whatever the school and local library might have as well.

This book is a good one to start the poetry and science unit because it introduces an important poet to children, in illustrations that many are familiar with style-wise thanks to Barbara Cooney. And it fits perfectly with the concept of poetry influenced by science because it emphasizes how Emily Dickinson's horticultural expertise inspired her writing.