Joyful Noise by Paul Fleischman

Poetry is something that I am passionate about. However, as a teacher I am fully aware of the fact that many high school students do not like Poetry. In my mind there are two main reasons that many students do not like poetry. First and foremost, it is poetry! At the slightest mention of the word students shutter. It is such a visceral reaction that many students do not even give it a chance. The second reason that many students do not enjoy poetry is that a great deal of it is actual work for them to understand. Who wants to read while at the same time trying to figure out metaphors?
So, the question for me was can I look past my own love for poetry and see Joyfull Noise through the eyes of a student. A couple of things jumped out at me right away. Things that I feel can even captivate the high school reader assuming they are willing to give it a shot. One thing that worked for the poems was the use of a dual voice. I actually cheated and used some of my students to do the reading, because the first time I read them through by myself they were not working for me. This ended up changing my view of the poems. They went from something that students would not want to read, mainly because it was about insects, to something that was new and exciting. It became an experience. This was seen in the fact that the students went from reading it with little to no inflection, to actually playing off of each other as they read. Having two voices read the poem, gave rhythm to the poem. They were able to work with each other and create in their own head the way the poem was supposed to be read. They were even able to pick up on the fact that the rhythm of the poem was supposed to reflect the rhythm of the insect. For instance, the grasshopper poem actually had the rhythm of a grasshopper in motion. Little jumps here, and larger jumps there. Another way the rhythm of two voices was used was in the poem “Fireflies”. In the fireflies and flickering going back and for I could picture the evening up in the boundary waters and looking out over the grassy area and seeing the flicking of the fireflies; going back and forth with their flickering just like Fleischman did in his poem.
Another reason I liked the dual voice was because Fleischman was able to use the dual voice multiple ways. It was not just to add rhythm to the poems, but it was also to give two different perspectives. One of the poems that I really enjoyed reading was t”Honeybees”. While the students read the poem I noticed how many more lines, in essence how much more work the worker bee had than the queen bee. The student actually stopped in the middle of the poem and asked why she had to read so many more lines then the other girl. When a student stops in the middle of reading it tells me that they are able to make a connection to the text. They may not have liked the poem (which they did not), but they were able to understand what the author was trying to do and could empathize with the plight of the worker bee. Another poem that Fleischman used two different perspectives was in the poem “Book Lice”. They were a couple that fell in love. The great part about this poem is that when they shared their individual loves they had an individual voice, but when it talked about what they both love, they shared their voice. In doing this Fleischman was able to give a feeling of loving relationship and even a marriage in the lice. The idea is that at one even though they are together they will always remain an individual.
Overall, I thought that the way that the poems were written allowed the reader (and listener) to become part of the poem. During the reading I was a grasshopper, bee, fly (fill in your favorite insect here). The rhythm of the poem gave the feeling of their motion, and the voice gave the reader enough of a story to keep even the students involved in their life. After finishing the book I asked the students what they thought as a whole, and they said that while it was still poetry and “not their favorite” they enjoyed the way that Fleischman made it “Fun”. In the end, even for the students it made created a beautiful noise with their words. Which is exactly what I think Fleischman was going for when he wrote these poems. The one criticism that I would have is that even for me, I am not sure how well students would be able to make a connection with the text without having two voices reading it for them or two them.