2nd February, 2012 - Posted by Christine Perrin - No Comments
C.S. Lewis is widely known for his view of myth as that collection of stories and archetypes that express our deepest desires and musings. He takes it another step further when he insists that these very desires (and their common currency among all cultures) suggest a truth about the reality structure of the universe. Our » Read More
11th January, 2011 - Posted by Christine Perrin - 1 Comment
Consisting of a student text ($24.95) and a teacher’s edition ($29.95), The Art of Poetry is a complete and affordable poetry curriculum for the middle school and high school years, and one that I highly recommend. Each of the first eight chapters focuses on a specific element of poetry and follows a similar format. For » Read More
11th January, 2011 - Posted by Christine Perrin - No Comments
Review of Art of Poetry Classical Academic Press put out a book called The Art of Poetry and it is impossibly perfect. The book is written in a way that helps you see things simply but is in now way written to make you feel simple. It is not watered down nor does it speak » Read More
1st October, 2010 - Posted by Christine Perrin - No Comments
I’m rereading Vivan Gornick’s book “The Situation and the Story” for an honor’s thesis that I’m advising. Gornick does a great of job of articulating these two parts that present in every great work of literature. She defines each this way “the situation is the context or circumstance, sometimes the plot; the story is the » Read More
3rd August, 2010 - Posted by Christine Perrin - 3 Comments
This week I spent four full days writing at a generous friend’s house in New Jersey. She invited several of us to come to stay at her house and to spend the days writing and the evenings in conversation about our work and lives. She cooked wonderful meals for us and we ate outside on » Read More
28th June, 2010 - Posted by Christine Perrin - 5 Comments
This power point which I used at the Society for Classical Learning Conference on Saturday samples poems from each writer, gives short biographical information, tracks their formal preferences and style, and gives assignments you can use in your classroom to help students understand their work more deeply (from the inside out). Read More
22nd June, 2010 - Posted by Christine Perrin - 1 Comment
Ode to the Bird that Sang The message reverberated in the strong throat To announce to me the beginning of a new day. The call is the first sweet call I have heard for weeks – It echoes through the empty air, the world so full of nothingness That the call seemed to shatter not » Read More
4th May, 2010 - Posted by Christine Perrin - No Comments
Art is the signature of man,” GK Chesterton liked to say. We are the only animals who are not only created but also creating: It is the simple truth that man does differ from the brutes in kind and not in degree; and the proof of it is here; that it sounds like a truism » Read More
19th March, 2010 - Posted by Christine Perrin - 1 Comment
Frost was interesting character. He was a great walker, as so many other writers have been (to name a few: CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien). He sometimes went into the woods alone at night, which puzzled his friends at college. When they asked him what he did on these walks he answered “I gnaw bark.” Though » Read More
25th February, 2010 - Posted by Christine Perrin - 6 Comments
Il Postino is an Italian film that takes on the subject of poetry in everyday lives. The film takes place on a small fishing village island. Pablo Neruda, the Chilean poet, has been exiled from his country because of political upheaval. He is allowed to live on this island during the period of his exile. » Read More
Welcome! The Art of Poetry is structured with three basic chunks: elements of poetry, tradition of poetry, application of poetry. In each chapter there is a small anthology, a learning to read closely section, and activities that range from writing exercise suggestions to other related activities that attempt to nail the encounter with the poem to daily life.
The book comes with a Teacher's Edition that helps to answer the questions about each poem.
I wrote Art of Poetry to give students and teachers access to poetry which belongs to all of us as human beings, which operates the way we all think and live, which we need to live well. My goal was to teach the skill of reading closely and to represent the familiarity and strangeness of this process.