Anthologies like the Norton and resources like Poetry Out Loud are doing a better job of including more contemporary poetry. We can still do more to get students excited about the amazing diversity of poets writing now.
Top Ten Books of Contemporary Poetry
The Badlands of Desire by Beckian Fritz Goldberg
Salt Works by Michael Chitwood
Strike Anywhere by Dean Young
Donkey Gospel by Tony Hoagland
Night Clerk at the Hotel of Both Worlds by Angela Ball
Selected Poems by Charles Simic
Tulip Farms and Leper Colonies by Charles Harper Webb
Flesh and Blood by C.K. Williams
Marriage and Other Science Fiction by Albert Goldbarth
Mystery Train by David Wojahn
Monday, January 2, 2012
Top Ten Books To Teach
Essential Top Ten
I found it daunting to think about essential texts I would teach if I had free reign. Of course I have spent a lot of time thinking about which books are important to me and why, as well as what are the important ideas for students to engage and which texts and authorial styles I most want them to encounter given the preponderance of great books in the world. Nevertheless, I was uncertain about each of the many lists I composed. There are so many factors to consider when assessing the value of a book. What does a text have to offer as 1) a cultural artifact, 2) a historical lens 3) a stylistic model, 4) a moral lesson, 5) a springboard into self-discovery, 6) a vehicle for pleasure?
I am most happy teaching the texts I currently use in my IB HL year one course (three of which are on my “essential” list). I do believe, however, that it is important for teachers to stay challenged and keep things fresh by frequently revamping or at least tweaking the list of core texts we teach.
Finally, here are the works in my most recent list. They are grouped thematically around issues of Identity, especially individuation and socialization. They show various strategies or the lack of any such resources in dealing with alienation and trauma, the anxieties of death, guilt and meaninglessness.
The Stranger- Albert Camus
An excellent example of how syntax, tone and stylistic concerns can develop thematic issues, this novel also allows students to consider the gulf between public and private reality and to ask themselves whether or not habit, mortality and absurdity pose the threats that Camus says they do.
Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
As rich a text as there is for discussing authorial techniques and textual structure. Helps students understand irony not only as a literary device but consider its value (or lack thereof) as a stance toward life. The book provides many opportunities for talking about war in unconventional ways. It is a treasure trove in terms of teaching satire. It also is one of the most compelling treatments anywhere of time and the problems associated with perception and the psychology of time
No Exit - Jean-Paul Sartre
The diabolical carousel intrigues students and forces them to consider questions about personal relationships and self-awareness? How can we know others? Is understanding someone the same as intimacy? How much and what kind of intimacy is possible or desirable? How much honest is possible or desirable in our conceptualizing of ourselves?
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig
This book is sometimes hard for students to get through, but it offers a great way to talk about the novel or ideas and the relationship between story and concepts. It also is as accessible and compelling an introduction as I know to the history of Western Philosophy and the various debates in metaphysics, ethics and aesthetics.
Less Than Zero- Bret Easton Ellis
A nightmare of nihilism, this book considers the emptiness of style, privilege, financial success, freedom, sex and hedonism, things many of our students think of as the good life. It poses many of the questions raised by The Stranger in ways much more culturally familiar to students.
Selected Poems -Charles Simic
I would supplement these main books with articles and poems, but I would like to have two complete poetry books to show the value of the poetry collection as a literary unit. Simic’s poetry has the power to show us the mysterious and the ominous in the everyday. His poems allow us to consider the dreamlike quality of consciousness and the way it transforms and is transformed by physical objects.
What the Living Do - Marie Howe
Howe’s poetry is all about healing, survival the terrible beauty of desire and the struggle to manage or resentment, hope, lust, and autonomy. In other words it is a very lyrical but penetratingly honest and available account of how to live, live well, live better in a world of very sharp edges.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest -Ken Kesey
Students can be cavalier about the question of authority and individual resistance to collectivism. They think of it as old news of a battle already won. This text is so well-written, and so nuanced as to open up readers to fascinating issues about identity, sexuality and the mechanization of humanity. People must wrestle with issues about authority and rebellion, and teenagers are eager to do so.
The Moviegoer- Walker Percy
This text allows a discussion of all the previously stated existential issues at the psychological and sociological levels, while also prompting engagement with the role of movies in world culture. The text is a valuable lens for looking at mid-twentieth-century historical issues in the new south. Percy’s style is somehow both understated and melodramatic.
Consider the Lobster -David Foster Wallace
This text covers a wide range of topics from porn to sports biography in a very self-conscious, witty challenging style. Superficially, this text would be labeled both too sophisticated and too risqué for most high school audiences. The power of Wallace’s perception is undeniable. This collection is a great way to show the possibilities of creative nonfiction and what essay writing can do to heighten our awareness , make us more acute viewers of details and more interesting synthesizers of those details.
I found it daunting to think about essential texts I would teach if I had free reign. Of course I have spent a lot of time thinking about which books are important to me and why, as well as what are the important ideas for students to engage and which texts and authorial styles I most want them to encounter given the preponderance of great books in the world. Nevertheless, I was uncertain about each of the many lists I composed. There are so many factors to consider when assessing the value of a book. What does a text have to offer as 1) a cultural artifact, 2) a historical lens 3) a stylistic model, 4) a moral lesson, 5) a springboard into self-discovery, 6) a vehicle for pleasure?
I am most happy teaching the texts I currently use in my IB HL year one course (three of which are on my “essential” list). I do believe, however, that it is important for teachers to stay challenged and keep things fresh by frequently revamping or at least tweaking the list of core texts we teach.
Finally, here are the works in my most recent list. They are grouped thematically around issues of Identity, especially individuation and socialization. They show various strategies or the lack of any such resources in dealing with alienation and trauma, the anxieties of death, guilt and meaninglessness.
The Stranger- Albert Camus
An excellent example of how syntax, tone and stylistic concerns can develop thematic issues, this novel also allows students to consider the gulf between public and private reality and to ask themselves whether or not habit, mortality and absurdity pose the threats that Camus says they do.
Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
As rich a text as there is for discussing authorial techniques and textual structure. Helps students understand irony not only as a literary device but consider its value (or lack thereof) as a stance toward life. The book provides many opportunities for talking about war in unconventional ways. It is a treasure trove in terms of teaching satire. It also is one of the most compelling treatments anywhere of time and the problems associated with perception and the psychology of time
No Exit - Jean-Paul Sartre
The diabolical carousel intrigues students and forces them to consider questions about personal relationships and self-awareness? How can we know others? Is understanding someone the same as intimacy? How much and what kind of intimacy is possible or desirable? How much honest is possible or desirable in our conceptualizing of ourselves?
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig
This book is sometimes hard for students to get through, but it offers a great way to talk about the novel or ideas and the relationship between story and concepts. It also is as accessible and compelling an introduction as I know to the history of Western Philosophy and the various debates in metaphysics, ethics and aesthetics.
Less Than Zero- Bret Easton Ellis
A nightmare of nihilism, this book considers the emptiness of style, privilege, financial success, freedom, sex and hedonism, things many of our students think of as the good life. It poses many of the questions raised by The Stranger in ways much more culturally familiar to students.
Selected Poems -Charles Simic
I would supplement these main books with articles and poems, but I would like to have two complete poetry books to show the value of the poetry collection as a literary unit. Simic’s poetry has the power to show us the mysterious and the ominous in the everyday. His poems allow us to consider the dreamlike quality of consciousness and the way it transforms and is transformed by physical objects.
What the Living Do - Marie Howe
Howe’s poetry is all about healing, survival the terrible beauty of desire and the struggle to manage or resentment, hope, lust, and autonomy. In other words it is a very lyrical but penetratingly honest and available account of how to live, live well, live better in a world of very sharp edges.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest -Ken Kesey
Students can be cavalier about the question of authority and individual resistance to collectivism. They think of it as old news of a battle already won. This text is so well-written, and so nuanced as to open up readers to fascinating issues about identity, sexuality and the mechanization of humanity. People must wrestle with issues about authority and rebellion, and teenagers are eager to do so.
The Moviegoer- Walker Percy
This text allows a discussion of all the previously stated existential issues at the psychological and sociological levels, while also prompting engagement with the role of movies in world culture. The text is a valuable lens for looking at mid-twentieth-century historical issues in the new south. Percy’s style is somehow both understated and melodramatic.
Consider the Lobster -David Foster Wallace
This text covers a wide range of topics from porn to sports biography in a very self-conscious, witty challenging style. Superficially, this text would be labeled both too sophisticated and too risqué for most high school audiences. The power of Wallace’s perception is undeniable. This collection is a great way to show the possibilities of creative nonfiction and what essay writing can do to heighten our awareness , make us more acute viewers of details and more interesting synthesizers of those details.
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