A new poetic form – and what English teachers can do with it

The Golden Shovel

Spoken word poetry veteran Peter Kahn introduces a new anthology which pays homage to US poet Gwendolyn Brooks through the ‘Golden Shovel’, a new poetic form ideal for fostering poetry writing in the classroom.

Gwendolyn Brooks, a name perhaps more familiar in the USA than the UK, was the first Black person to win a Pulitzer Prize, and the second Black National Poet Laureate in the US. Dedicated to the cause of civil rights, the championing of black communities, and the nurturing of black literature, she is one of the most highly-regarded of 20th-century American poets.

In this her centenary year, a special anthology of poems paying homage to Brooks has been published (edited by fellow poetry educators Patricia Smith and Ravi Shankar, and me). Each poem in the anthology is written in a dynamic new form, the ‘Golden Shovel’, in which the last words of each line are, in order, words from a line or lines taken from a Gwendolyn Brooks

poem. The form was invented by Terrance Hayes, whose poem ‘The Golden Shovel’ takes its name from Brooks’ much-loved poem ‘We Real Cool’, and uses every word of the Brooks poem, twice over, at the end of its lines.

The form not only provides opportunities for established poets to experiment, but is also ideal for encouraging poetry in the classroom – something I’ve done successfully with students in both the UK and the US. Many teens are reluctant to write and share their own poetry. They often find the idea quite intimidating. The Golden Shovel can help reduce student apprehension by allowing them to borrow the writing of ‘master’ poets of their choice in order to start creating.

Features: Creative and Critical English

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44 | NATE | Teaching English | Issue 14

The Golden Shovel: A new poetic form – and what English teachers can do with it

Learning ObjectivesStudents will have opportunities to:

• Read a wide range of poems

• Discuss what makes language interesting and surprising (i.e., what makes a ‘striking line’)

• Discuss the importance of word choice in poetry and what makes an intriguing or memorable word choice

• Learn a new poetic form—the Golden Shovel

• Read and discuss sample Golden Shovel poems

• Apply a ‘borrowed’ line from a poem to create their own Golden Shovel poem

• Learn and a public speaking skills

Resources and MaterialsTo teach this unit you will need:

• Copies of the poems needed

• Student access to the Poetry By Heart or Poetry Out Loud websites

• Lots of whiteboard or blackboard space

• Paper and writing implements

Session OneThis session will help students determine what lines and word choices stand out in good poetry and will provide background for writing their original poetry. It will also introduce the Golden Shovel form.

• Discuss what makes a ‘striking line’ in literature (i.e., a line that is especially interesting, surprising and original; that jumps out at the reader; and/or that makes the reader think).

• Read Jane Cooper’s ‘Hunger Moon’ aloud (on Poetry Out Loud website). Then have students read it silently, while underlining striking lines. For example:

’The last full moon of February / stalks the fields’ ‘barbed wire casts a shadow’ ’it advances on my pillow’ ’with the cocked gun of silence’ ’The moon, in pale buckskins, crouches’ ‘all the fences thrum’

• Next, discuss the importance of surprising/unusual word choices in poetry. Have students underline those words from the striking lines on the board (i.e., ‘stalks,’ ‘barbed,’ ‘crouches’ and ‘thrum’).

• Repeat the process using sections from Gwendolyn Brooks’s ‘The Blackstone Rangers’ (on Poetry Out Loud website).

• Read Gwendolyn Brooks’ ‘We Real Cool’ (on Poetry Foundation website). If you have time, you may play Ms. Brooks reciting the original poem, also on the Poetry Foundation website. Then have the students read Terrance Hayes’s ‘The Golden Shovel’ aloud (on Poetry Foundation website). Ask students to look for anything unusual about the form and see if anyone notices that Brooks’ poem, ‘We Real Cool,’ is laid out vertically at the end of each of Hayes’s lines. If no one figures it out without a hint, point out that it is ‘after Gwendolyn Brooks’ and explain what enjambement means (‘unnatural’ line breaks, or ‘The

Furthermore, for fledgling writers, in particular, form can liberate, providing a scaffold and giving them the confidence to begin writing. With an entirely new form, young writers can feel like they’re on the ground level of something and are less intimidated by history and the weight of Shakespeare, Donne, Frost, Dickinson, Rumi, and so on. Experimentation with new models can level the playing field to some extent—quite an exciting prospect for students and teachers alike.

What follows is a series of suggestions for using the Golden Shovel in class, in the form of a unit description.

“The form not only provides opportunities for established poets to experiment, but is also ideal for encouraging poetry in the classroom. It can help reduce student apprehension by allowing them to borrow the writing of ‘master’ poets of their choice in order to start creating.”

NATE | Teaching English | Issue 14 | 45

Features: Creative and Critical English

• Next, they should begin writing their Golden Shovel poem. Note: This form allows students to write without having to brainstorm for topics. A sort of creative ‘magic’ tends to occur. Students often gravitate towards those things that are on their minds. If students struggle, you may recommend that they write about recent thoughts. If that doesn’t work, have them consider people, places and things that are important to them. Finally, if all else fails, have them try writing about their favourite or least favourite memories.

running-over of a sentence or phrase from one poetic line to the next, without terminal punctuation; the opposite of end-stopped’) (see the Poetry Foundation website). After a few minutes, point out the form that Hayes has created.

• Finally, students should read at least three poems of their own from the Poetry By Heart or Poetry Out Loud website and make note of striking lines that include surprising word choices. They should complete for homework, if need be.

Session TwoThis session will allow students to put their ‘borrowed’ lines to use in their own original poems, applying what they learned in Session One.

• Referring back to Terrance Hayes’s ‘The Golden Shovel,’ explain the Golden Shovel form:

– In its purest form, one should find a poem and create one’s own with the borrowed poem laid out vertically on the right margin of the created poem.

– For this assignment, students borrow a striking line from a poem and create their own with the borrowed line laid out vertically on the right margin of the created poem.

– Recommended length—6 to 24 words (i.e., 6 to 24 lines in the poem one creates).

– The theme or topic of the created poem may or may not be linked to the borrowed poem/line.

– It is recommended to choose a striking line that contains some unusual word choices.

– An advanced challenge is to make the line lengths consistent.

• Look at the sample poems (below) by Nova Venerable, based on a striking line from the Jane Cooper poem; and by Hannah Srajer, based on a striking line from the Gwendolyn Brooks poem. (A third poem by Lexus Valentine is also provided). All three are US high-school slam poetry performers.

• Ask students to determine where Nova ‘cheats’ in terms of the form? (Possible answer: she writes ‘stalk’ instead of ‘stalks’, and her last line is much longer than the other lines in the poem.) Then, discuss where Hannah ‘cheats.’ (Possible answer: she writes ‘know,’ instead of ‘no.’)

• Students should then select one of their ‘found’ striking lines selected from poems from the Poetry Out Loud or Poetry By Heart website and/or anthology to use for their own Golden Shovel poem. They should write out the line vertically down the right margin.

“With an entirely new form, young writers can feel like they’re on the ground level of something and be less intimidated. Experimentation with new models can level the playing field.”

46 | NATE | Teaching English | Issue 14

The Golden Shovel: A new poetic form – and what English teachers can do with it

Optional Concluding Sessions: Poetry PerformanceIn these sessions, students prepare to perform both the poem from which they borrowed a line, and their own Golden Shovel poem.

• Work with students on poetry performance skills, by brainstorming possible tones that a presenter could utilize to convey his/her feelings about the poem (for instance: ironic, humorous, sarcastic, heartfelt, tongue-in-cheek, bitter, mocking). Using video clips of poetry performance, ask students to discuss the performers’ use of tone.

• Referring again to the video clips, ask students what they felt the presenters did to engage the audience. Facial expressions, body language, gestures, volume shifts, pacing shifts, tone shifts, gestures, etc., may all be discussed.

• Students present the poem from which they borrowed the striking line (with special emphasis given to that line), followed by their original Golden Shovel poem. They should consider their intended tone when performing their original poem, as well as the tone they want to convey in their original selection.

And finally …The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks, published by University of Arkansas Press, contains new poems by students and emerging poets, like Dark Noise Collective members Danez Smith, Franny Choi and Aaron Samuel, alongside more established writers, including T.S. Eliot Prize winners Jacob Polley, George Szirtes, John Burnside, Philip Gross and Mark Doty, former UK Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, former American National Poet Laureates, Billy Collins, Rita Dove, Phil Levine and Maxine Kumin, Pulitzer Prize Winners Greg Pardlo, Stephen Dunn, Sharon Olds and Tracy K. Smith, National Book Award winners Jean Valentine, Virginia Euwer Wolff, Julia Glass, Richard Powers and Mark Doty, and best-selling fiction and Young Adult authors like Sharon Draper, Elizabeth Berg, Bonnie Jo Campbell and Judy Blundell.

The book will be launched in London at the British Library on the evening of 29th June. Produced by Speaking Volumes, in collaboration with Forward Arts, Spread the Word, The Poetry School and Apples & Snakes, the event will feature National Book Award winner and MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Terrance Hayes, the creator of the Golden Shovel form, as well as co-editor Patricia Smith, a four-time international poetry slam champion and National Book Award finalist. We’ll be celebrating Gwendolyn Brooks for her centenary and Malika’s Kitchen, with local readers including Malika Booker, Roger Robinson, Nick Makoha, Raymond Antrobus, Indigo Williams, Keith Jarrett, Anthony Joseph, Inua Ellams, and former Youth Poet Laureate Aisling Fahey.

Peter Kahnis co-founder of the London Teenage Poetry Slam and founding member of Malika’s Kitchen. Based at Oak Park & River Forest High School in Chicago, he runs the largest school-based spoken word club in the world.

Session ThreeThis session will first allow students to apply the skills learned in the previous sessions to help their classmates improve their writing.

• Put students in pairs or groups of three for peer editing. Does the poem follow the Golden Shovel form? Does the poem make sense? Are there any surprising word choices? Are there ways of making the line lengths more consistent? What is the intent of the writer? Students should revise accordingly.

‘The Last Full Moon of February’ by Nova Venerable. Used by permission of the author.

After Jane CooperFrom ‘Hunger Moon’ (‘The last full moon of February stalks the fields.’)

My little brother draws on my door every morning with his fists, thewords he makes are meshed between his tongue and my last

prayer asking God if I am being too selfish, if my hands are too fullof psychology books, too laced with Boston air to follow the moon

back home. My eyes are as moist as the spit on his lips, thoughts ofhis funeral come as often as snowfalls in February.

I ask God how soon my fingertips will have to stalkhis casket, for a sign to tell me if the moon will be the

brightest path to follow before he is alone & my fingers lose him in a gravestoned field.

‘My Twin Brother Becoming a Man’ by Hannah Srajer. Used by permission of the author.

After Gwendolyn Brooks(from ‘The Blackstone Rangers’-- ‘...dissolve no margins, stop no savoring sanctities.’)

Once laid out like dinner plates, my brother’s bare hands dissolveinto meat-ened fists. He and the boy whose face I do not k(no)w

are seconds away from springing, circling at Chicago & Park’s marginslike seagulls over silvered fish. The dive comes. He cannot stop

until a glinted knife raws into skin like he is a box with heavy tape noone can open. Street’s an unfurled tongue, black & wet, savoring

the hothead blood of men, lapping clean all trace of sanctities.

‘Sores in the city that do not want to heal’ by Lexus Valentine. Used by permission of the author.

After Gwendolyn Brooks(From ‘The Blackstone Rangers’—’Sores in the city that do not want to heal’)

I’ve become sores,netted into your scalp from missing pieces inmy wide tooth comb, sitting in thePanera bread over soup bowls. The citynever changed. Since you left, I can recognize thatyou lift up your tips on what to & what not to dowhen I reach college. You say, ‘Never believe in what I’m not.’But what I want--shifting your goodbyes in my pocket. Giving up is something I’m not used to.With your advice we’ll never heal.