Volta and Revolt: Exploring Moments of Change in Poetry
Volta and Revolt: Exploring Moments of Change in Poetry
Caitlin Doyle
This exercise is geared toward introductory poetry courses and it has been designed to last for a full class session. It can be shortened or lengthened depending on the duration of the session. For example, instructors can repeat the activities in steps 2, 4, and 5, working with additional poems of their choosing, in order to fill a longer class period, or else they can cut down on the number of activities to suit a shorter period.
Volta and Revolt centers on in-class activities rather than writing prompts or assignments for students to complete outside of class. However, an instructor can easily use the material covered in this exercise as the basis for any number of prompts or assignments that invite students to engage with “turns” and “moments of change” in poetry. In brief, students will compare two versions of the same poem, the original by a famous poet and a version altered by the instructor before class.
This exercise has been formulated to address a common pattern among beginning writers: they often start out producing poems that inadvertently strike a single note from beginning to end, employing vivid descriptive language but failing to develop in meaningful ways. The goal of the exercise is to help students understand that the most compelling poems contain shifts, turns, and moments of change, leading the reader in unexpected directions as the language unfolds. To this end, we commence with a consideration of the volta in the sonnet form. It is useful to emphasize toward the beginning of the exercise that the words volta” and revolt share an etymological connection to the Italian word rivoltare, which means “to turn or overthrow,” and then to raise the following question for students: How and why might a poem turn from—or perhaps even revolt against—its own initial premise? As a key part of the exercise, we look closely at the two following quotes:
“Like a piece of ice on a hot stove, a poem must ride on its own melting.” —Robert Frost
“The moment of change is the only poem.” —Adrienne Rich
The Robert Frost quote provides a useful way to think about a poem as a state of matter that undergoes a transformation from start to finish, an ever-shifting entity that arrives at a place different from its point of departure. Adrienne Rich’s assertion spurs us to consider moments of change in poetry on both a micro and macro level. Her statement suggests that turns in poems comprise the art form’s most essential source of power, while also implying that, in the absence of such turns, a piece of writing may fail to rightfully earn the designation of poetry. In a larger sense, Rich’s words point to the possibility that instances of change in our actual lives beyond the page might be a driving force behind our need to put pen to paper. Throughout Volta and Revolt, these two quotes can be seen as a set of anchoring ideas that contextualize the students’ exploration of how turns fun