Disappointing poetry

Last week my Form 4s and I tried to figure out the poem "Full Moon and Little Frieda" by Ted Hughes together. It's a beautiful poem that captures the innocence of a child and a moment in time when she interacts with the universe and the universe interacts with and responds to her. It is a tricky poem though: the images are confusing and the sentence structure is not clear. You have to work hard to get to the beauty of the poem. And last week I made them work. I never just give out the meaning of a poem (I don't presume to know many meanings of poems anyway). I make my students annotate and think and write and then we discuss all the way through, often line-by-sometimes-excruciating-line. It is sometimes painful but I want them to learn to analyse poetry for themselves and to think through a difficult poem. It is rewarding to have come to conclusions yourself. You get so much more out of something if you work hard and see the light in the end. And once they see that you're not going to do it for them and that you trust them and their ideas they really get into it, if they have to figure out what the poem means themselves (sometimes they get into it a little too much and come up with some wacky ideas and then you have to gently prod them back onto the straight and narrow).

So, we spent a tiring but thoroughly enjoyable 40 minutes working through "Full Moon and Little Frieda". And they were wonderful. With a few questions and guidance they made some really astute comments about the poem and "figured it out": who the he was, who the you was, the perspective of the author, some ideas what the blood river was (one I had never thought of!), the trembling star and unspilled milk... They started off completely lost and with looks on their faces that said "why would you do this to us on a Wednesday afternoon, Miss Bell?" and by the end I was thrilled with how involved they had been and the ideas they had come up with. I was so proud and got to the end of the 40 minute lesson feeling invigorated and just tingling - you know that feeling, at the end of a really good lesson? Where everything has just fallen into place so perfectly and you couldn't have planned or executed it better? Rare, but oh so good.

After my final "Okay, any last thoughts or comments about this poem?" I put down my poem and said with passion, "Wasn't that a great poem?"

...

And my balloon of love and happiness popped as I was met with groans and sighs, "No... not the best.... the other one was better... ugh." What?!

Oh poetry. Oh students. Will you never cease to play havoc with my heart?

Here's the poem for your enjoyment (don't tell me if you don't):

Full Moon and Little Frieda

A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket -
And you listening.
A spider's web, tense for the dew's touch.
A pail lifted, still and brimming - mirror
To tempt a first star to a tremor.

Cows are going home in the lane there, looping the hedges with their warm
wreaths of breath -
A dark river of blood, many boulders,
Balancing unspilled milk.
'Moon!' you cry suddenly, 'Moon! Moon!'

The moon has stepped back like an artist gazing amazed at a work
That points at him amazed.

Ted Hughes