Even Hemingway-haters agree that the Nick Adams short-stories are primo stuff.

Sorry to interrupt, but I saw this and had to thank you.

She then set up brackets for....yes, you guessed it -- a POETRY DEATHMATCH!!!

I am so stealing this for my hugh school kids! What a fabulous idea! We've done original poetry slams before (of their original work), but it would be a fantastic way to involve them in a discussion of what makes a "classic" poem great if they each had to find "the best poem ever written" and then competed to determine a final winner!!!

Thank you (and your friend) for the great idea!

I love the Deathmatch concept used in this way, with a deep abiding love.

I wonder about a "best poem ever" thing, though, because I know mine change from day to day. That's the thing about poetry - it's so very subjective.

One day I'd pick Millay's "The Blueflag in the Bog" or "The Lace Weaver." Next day, mood changes and it's Neruda's "Walking Around." Next three days after that, Michael Drayton, "Since There's No Help." Not a lot in common.

What would the criteria be? I'm really curious how this would work.

I wonder about a "best poem ever" thing, though, because I know mine change from day to day. That's the thing about poetry - it's so very subjective.

Heh. I have more favorites than I do hair on my head. W.H. Auden's "In Memory of W.B. Yeats" is probably my favorite, but I have deep abiding love for poems no one's much heard of, like Richard Orborn Hood's "How to Act Around Mountain Lions" or Matthew Niblock's "Zoo Metaphors."

What would the criteria be? I'm really curious how this would work.

I don't know how the 3rd-graders did it, but I just assumed that, even for adults, it would just be the poem you liked best, for whatever reason.

What I mean is, Lizard wrote a poem that I love, just for how lyrical the words are; I read it out loud 3 times in a row when she first posted it. I love it. I don't, however, understand it. And yet I'd still vote for it in a poetry deathmatch, because I love the words so much.

What I mean is, Lizard wrote a poem that I love, just for how lyrical the words are; I read it out loud 3 times in a row when she first posted it. I love it. I don't, however, understand it. And yet I'd still vote for it in a poetry deathmatch, because I love the words so much.

But would it be the poem you loved in that mood, at that given moment? That's the part I'm juggling with, because my poetry take is so tied into wherever my spirit is at any given moment.

If I'm feeling parentally tender, the first thing that comes into my head are Cecil Day-Lewis' poems for his children: "Walking Away" for Sean, "The Newborn" for Daniel, "Getting Warmer, Getting Colder" for Tamsin. And his farewell poem to them, when he knew he was dying - shit.

But other days, I'd only appreciate them intellectually, and not in my spirit or my heart. So how does it work?

But would it be the poem you loved in that mood, at that given moment?

I think that's how I'd choose in a poetry deathmatch, yeah.

Well, it wouldn't really matter if their favorite poem changed, as far as my goal in the class. To get teenagers to take a published poem (whether it be classic or contemporary) and invest in it to a level that they were willing to perform and defend it would be my real goal. Sneaky underhanded teacher way of getting them to hear 20+ excellent poems and debate the literary merits et al!

They're competitive little buggers. In the end, I would definitely tell them that there is no such thing as an actual "best poem" that everyone will ever agree on, but at that point it wouldn't matter anymore.

Now I'm getting it - best at that moment, via the setting of the deathmatch.

See, this is why I never get beyond question four on the Meyers-Briggs whatsis tests.

To get teenagers to take a published poem (whether it be classic or contemporary) and invest in it to a level that they were willing to perform and defend it would be my real goal.

As long as they don't all choose Yeats's "The Second Coming". Adventures in overwrought fanfic have taught me that it really is possible to take a pretty good poem and render it meaningless by repetition.

Also true of Eliot, although people go all over the map on his work rather than beeline to a single poem. Also, I have a poem someplace called "The Love Song of Audrey", which is what would happen if Prufrock were a dog. (There is whining and shoe-chewing involved.) It brought the original back to life, for me, and I know how absurd that sounds.