MUSIC, POETRY AND IMAGINATION

(A lesson to share)

Objective: Students will write poems, expressing feelings, constructing imagery and personifying one atmospheric phenomenon, after having listened to the musical piece The Storm by Yanni and read Ode to Storm by Pablo Neruda.

Genre: Poetry

Age: 3^rd Grade-High School

Prompts: Yanni’s piece The Storm and Neruda’s poem Ode to Storm.

        

I start this lesson by turning off the lights in the classroom. I ask students to close their eyes, open their ears. Yanni’s music fills the space. Many begin to almost involuntarily move their bodies, keeping their eyes closed. After we have listened to Yanni’s piece, I invite students to offer thoughts, comments, feelings, and images visualized. Yanni’s work The Storm does not last very long, and it is an excellent source to awaken imagination. So having students listen to it in the classroom should generate lots of inventive responses. I let them write down a few ideas on paper to be used later on when constructing their poems. Next, I share the composer’s name and the title of the song, which helps me bring Neruda’s poem to the table. (For younger kids, I would recommend not to read the Neruda poem in its entirety but an excerpt.) We read an excerpt from Ode to Storm by Pablo Neruda together and talk about imagery, feelings, and personification for a few minutes.

“Let’s think about atmospheric phenomena?” I ask. I inquire for some examples and encourage students to choose one to be personified in a poem. If a little more time is needed for them to better understand the idea of personification, going back to Neruda’s poem will be good. Any object, animal or abstract entity is personified when presented as having human qualities. Afterward, I ask students to use their previously written ideas as well as views on the phenomenon of their choice to begin exploring with language. “Think of the rain as your best friend or as yourself,” one may say to a particular student. “If the rainbow were a person, how would he look? What activities would he love, or not like, to do? How do you imagine the character of the hurricane to be? Is there any person whose character may remind you of the hurricane?” The goal is that students connect possibilities while playing with words and images. The students’ poems will be fascinating! Before the end of class, there must always be some minutes left for them to share their pieces and reflect briefly about the experience. Revision and editing can be done in the next class session.

Ode to Storm  by Pablo Neruda 

Last night

she 

came, 

livid, 

night-blue, 

wine-red: 

the tempest 

with her 

hair of water,

eyes of cold fire-

last night she wanted

to sleep on earth. 

She came all of a sudden

newly unleashed 

out of her furious planet,

her cavern in the sky; 

she longed for sleep 

and made her bed: 

sweeping jungles and highways,

sweeping mountains, 

washing ocean stones, 

and then
as if they were feathers,
ravaging pine trees
to make her bed.
She took the lightning
from her quiver of fire,
dropped thunderclaps
like great barrels.
All of a sudden
there was a silence:
a single leaf
gliding on air
like a flying violin-
then,
before
it touched the earth,
you took it
in your hands, great storm,
put all your winds to work
blowing their horns,
set the whole night
galloping with its horses,
all the ice whistling,
the wild
trees
groaning in misery
like prisoners,
the earth
moaning, a woman
giving birth,
in a single blow
you blotted out
the noise of grass
or stars,
tore
the numbed silence
like a handkerchief-
the world filled
with sound, fury and fire,
and when the lightning flashes
fell like hair
from your shining forehead,
fell like swords
from your warrior's belt
and when we were about to think
that the world was ending,
then,
rain,
rain,
only
rain,
all earth, all
sky,
at rest,
the night
fell, bleeding to death
on human sleep,
nothing but rain,
water
of time and sky:
nothing had fallen
except a broken branch,
an empty nest.

With your musical
fingers,
with your hell-roar,
your fire
of volcanoes at night,
you played
at lifting a leaf,
gave strength to rivers,
taught
men
to be men,
the weak to fear,
the tender to cry,
the windows
to rattle-
but
when
you prepared to destroy us, when
like a dagger
fury fell from the sky,
when all the light
and shadow trembled
and the pines devoured
themselves howling
on the edge of the midnight sea,
you, delicate storm,
my betrothed,
wild as you were,
did us no wrong:
but returned
to your star
and rain,
green rain,
rain full
of dreams and seeds,
mother
of harvests
rain,
world-washing rain,
draining it,
making it new,
rain for us men
and for the seeds,
rain
for the forgetting
of the dead
and for
tomorrow's bread-
only the rain
you left behind,
water and music,
for this,
I love you
storm,
reckon with me,
come back,
wake me up,
illuminate me,
show me your path
so that the chosen voice,
the stormy voice of man
may join and sing your song with you.