"Listen, my children..." I said, "Listen!" "LISTEN!" "Shut up, for Pete's sake!"

My enthusiasm for poetry does not always transfer fluidly to the students I teach. I once got into a heated exchange with a 6th grade scholar who called BS on my lesson about the symbolism pertaining to William Carlos Williams's "The Red Wheelbarrow." Morgan could NOT be convinced about the wheelbarrow representing Communist oppression and the repressed labor force. "It's JUST a wheelbarrow, Mrs. Mosiman," she argued. "No, Morgan," I sighed with passion, "It is SO much more."

Knowing that poetry MIGHT be met with a tad bit of resistance, I now go all out to sell it as the rule-breaking, take-no-prisoners, kick-a$$ subject that it has always been destined to be. Case-in-point: Paul Revere's Ride. Historically accurate? Heck, no! Poetic license, people! Painfully long but packed with the figurative language examples that I was attempting to stress, how was I going to keep sixteen nine-year-olds engaged in a poem of which most adults recognize but can only recall the first two lines? Four if you're intent on impressing people at a party.

Time to scour the inter-web! For twenty minutes of which I will never get back, my friend Kirsten and I listened to countless audio examples of galloping horse hoofs.

Side-note: As so often happens, another lesson emerged as I grumpily acknowledged Longfellow, eschewing conventional spelling rules as the renegade poet he was, with this frustrating omission of the more conventional irregular plural noun form of hoof to hooves. Maddening. Henry, you rogue!

"It sounds too muffled, like the horse is running on a beach," Kirsten declared of our first candidate. "You're right," I agreed, "Too sandy." We quickly kicked out the next one. "Too many horses," we observed, "Paul Revere wasn't a jockey in the Kentucky Derby." We vetoed the version that sounded as though the horse was pounding over payment, deeming it unauthentic. We also impeached any soundtrack that included "Ya-hoos" or "Yee Haws." And then, finally, we found it. Sometimes you just know, right? The sound starts, far off in the distance, growing louder as it draws closer and closer until it speeds past, only to drift off as it disappears ahead of us. And glory be...the looping video runs for an hour! It is not ours to question why, people.

Sound-bite in place, the students were each assigned a stanza passage. We could hear hooves...oops, sorry, Henry...hoofs off in the distance as each child stood for his or her dramatic reading. I sat riveted as each voice quieted or grew louder depending on the proximity of our horse. Each voice took on the rhythmic cadence mirroring the unrelenting pace of Paul's pony. Paul Revere's Ride, all fourteen stanzas...sigh...came alive in Room 24 that day. We understood rhythm's role in poetry because we FELT it take control of our words and guide us through the countryside; across that bridge in Concord town. We SAW the spark struck by the passing steed across the cobblestone street, HEARD the soft steps across the sand...oh, wait. No, we didn't. Kirsten and I didn't like those sound-bites. But still...you get the picture. More importantly...my students did.