Poetry For The People

For students and educators interested in teaching poetry, here are some resources that outline our curriculum. Each year, we choose three communities to study, and compile a reader with poems from each community. In addition, we assign one to two books for students to read and study.

For the Spring 2005 semester, we studied African-American, Arab/Arab-American, and Native American/Native Hawaiian poetry. Our reading list for this semester included the following books:

• Kissing God Goodbye by June Jordan
• Renaissance by Ruth Forman
• In The Country of My Dreams by Elmaz Abinader
• How We Became Human by Joy Harjo

Another indispensable resource for teaching the Poetry for the People way is Poetry for the People: A Revolutionary Blueprint, which describes almost every aspect of the class, from suggested reading lists to advice for putting on poetry readings and sample exercises and guidelines for the critique and revision of poetry.