Art and Poetry Connection

As I continued to think about connecting art and writing and nature in my classroom (thanks to the VAST course I took through University of the Arts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art!), I thought I might try pairing poems and paintings, so that while we are reading/analyzing a poem in class, students also have a visual accompaniment. The poem's structure and form can serve as a mentor text and the painting can serve as inspiration for student's own original poetry.  Here are a few of the pairs I've discovered, but I hope to find more before the school year starts!

"Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost and 

Poplars on the Bank of the Epte by Claude Monet

Nature's first green is gold, 
Her hardest hue to hold. 
Her early leaf's a flower; 
But only so an hour. 
Then leaf subsides to leaf. 
So Eden sank to grief, 
So dawn goes down to day. 
Nothing gold can stay. 

"The Tree is Here, Still, In Pure Stone" by Pablo Neruda and 

Birch and Pine Tree No. 1 by Georgia O'Keeffe
The tree is here, still, in pure stone, 

in deep evidence, in solid beauty, 

layered, through a hundred million years. 

Agate, cornelian, gemstone 

transmuted the timber and sap 

until damp corruptions 

fissured the giant's trunk 

fusing a parallel being: 

the living leaves 

unmade themselves 

and when the pillar was overthrown 

fire in the forest, blaze of the dust-cloud, 

celestial ashes mantled it round, 

until time, and the lava, created 

this gift, of translucent stone. 

"Night Poem" by Margaret Atwood and Rain by Vincent van Gogh

Philadelphia Museum of Art

There is nothing to be afraid of, 

it is only the wind 

changing to the east, it is only 

your father the thunder 

your mother the rain 

In this country of water 

with its beige moon damp as a mushroom, 

its drowned stumps and long birds 

that swim, where the moss grows 

on all sides of the trees 

and your shadow is not your shadow 

but your reflection, 

your true parents disappear 

when the curtain covers your door. 

We are the others, 

the ones from under the lake 

who stand silently beside your bed 

with our heads of darkness. 

We have come to cover you 

with red wool, 

with our tears and distant whipers. 

You rock in the rain's arms 

the chilly ark of your sleep, 

while we wait, your night 

father and mother 

with our cold hands and dead flashlight, 

knowing we are only 

the wavering shadows thrown 

by one candle, in this echo 

you will hear twenty years later. 







"Warble for Lilac Time" from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman and 

Hydrangeas by Alma Thomas


Philadelphia Museum of Art


  Warble me now for joy of lilac-time, (returning in reminiscence,)
  Sort me O tongue and lips for Nature's sake, souvenirs of earliest summer,
  Gather the welcome signs, (as children with pebbles or stringing shells,)
  Put in April and May, the hylas croaking in the ponds, the elastic air,
  Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its simple notes,
  Blue-bird and darting swallow, nor forget the high-hole flashing his
      golden wings,
  The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the vapor,
  Shimmer of waters with fish in them, the cerulean above,
  All that is jocund and sparkling, the brooks running,
  The maple woods, the crisp February days and the sugar-making,
  The robin where he hops, bright-eyed, brown-breasted,
  With musical clear call at sunrise, and again at sunset,
  Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard, building the nest
      of his mate,
  The melted snow of March, the willow sending forth its yellow-green sprouts,
  For spring-time is here! the summer is here! and what is this in it
      and from it?
  Thou, soul, unloosen'd—the restlessness after I know not what;
  Come, let us lag here no longer, let us be up and away!
  O if one could but fly like a bird!
  O to escape, to sail forth as in a ship!
  To glide with thee O soul, o'er all, in all, as a ship o'er the waters;
  Gathering these hints, the preludes, the blue sky, the grass, the
      morning drops of dew,
  The lilac-scent, the bushes with dark green heart-shaped leaves,
  Wood-violets, the little delicate pale blossoms called innocence,
  Samples and sorts not for themselves alone, but for their atmosphere,
  To grace the bush I love—to sing with the birds,
  A warble for joy of returning in reminiscence.

Writing Nature

I've already fallen off the wagon. My goal to blog each day was thwarted by a spontaneous camping trip to Lums Pond State Park in Delaware. Since my laptop spent the weekend on my coffee table, all blogging ceased. As my yoga instructor said last week, "Sometimes it's good to get away for a bit.  Sometimes you just need to hug a tree."

Several weeks ago, I had the pleasure of participating in a course for teachers called VAST (Visual Arts as Sources for Teaching) at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (@philamuseum). This year the course was titled "Nature through the Lens of Art and Science." As I enjoyed nature during my weekend of camping, I continuously thought back to discussions and lessons I learned in that course, several of which are recalled below. Since only one seminar was dedicated to exclusively to writing about nature, I must attribute all of these writing lesson ideas to the seminar instructor @BethKephart. (Much thanks!)




Quick Collaborative Poetry
-->Make several pieces of art available for students to view.  
-->Give students 2 minutes to jot down descriptors (words and/or phrases) of any or all of the art.  
-->Students then return to their seats, preferably in a circle, and pass their descriptors to the person on their right. (Don't tell them in advance that they'll be handing them off to another student!)
-->After taking the list of words from the person on their left, students have 3 minutes to create a poem using some or all of their classmate's words. 
-->Share! (Take volunteers or have everyone share.)


What I like about this activity: 1) The short time constraints instill a sense of urgency in students and force them to write on the spot. No time for writer's block! 2) Using art as inspiration for writing is often a more comfortable starting point than requiring students to write about a more personal topic. Before long, the personal topics will surface in their poetry! 3) I like the idea writing poetry using someone else's words-particularly when first starting out. It reminds me of 'Found Poetry.' Experimenting with word choice and arrangement can be less intimidating when the words do not 'belong' to you.

Nature Walk:
-->Read aloud poetry and prose by authors (including by you the teacher!) writing about nature. Potential authors include Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emily Dickinson, William Carlos Williams, Pablo Neruda, Mary Oliver, and Margaret Atwood.
-->Send students out into a natural space (gardens, fields, etc.) to collect words about their observations of the natural world.
-->Reconvene to create group and/or individual poems based on words collected during the nature walk.


Art/photography connection: Ask students to use their camera phones to take photos of objects they find intriguing. The objects in these photos can become inspiration for their poetry or prose.


A Change of Scenery:
-->Share excerpts from Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River 
-->Invite students to write from the perspective of an inanimate object (perhaps one they took a photo of during their nature walk--see previous activity)


Extension: A related lesson plan with a socially conscious emphasis by Bill Bigelow @RethinkSchools: The Human Lives behind the Labels


Love Hate Relationship:
-->Read this Kate Northrop Poem to students.
-->Ask students to write their own "Three Things Loved, Three Things Hated" poem using Northrop's as a model.


Extension: Students choose one "thing" from this poem to become a topic of a longer poem or writing piece.  

Garden Memory:
-->Display a piece of art depicting a garden or other natural scene.
-->Read 2-3 models of writing about nature. 
-->Ask students to recall a favorite memory of a garden or nature and write about it for 4 minutes.  
-->Share! (Volunteers or everyone)  Ask follow-up questions requiring students to reflect on their process of recalling their memories and composing their piece.


The Color of Your Life:
-->Read the following lines from Gerald Stern's poem Eggshell:
"The color of life is an almost pale white robin's green
that once was bluer when it was in the nest,
before the jay had arranged the straw and warm flesh
was in the shell."

-->Give students 4 minutes to answer the question "What is the color of your life?" and share. This would make an excellent icebreaker.

Here's mine:

Freckles and bronze skin on sand;

Crisp pizzelles, chocolate (milk and dark), espresso

Adorning oak, lace-covered tables;

Dirt from gardens, back yards, wooded paths.

Extension: Write about a color without ever naming the color.

The Essential Nature of Collaboration

Favorite quotation from VAST: "It's an illusion that we're ever working alone. We're always collaborating and the more aware of that we become, the better off we are."  -Landscape Sculptor and Artist, Winifred Lutz