The Magic of the Poetic Turn - An Interview with Dr. Michael Theune [S5 E147]

Listen to the full episode below:

Brave New Teaching friends, it’s Amanda here, and I’m so incredibly excited to share today’s guest episode with you! It features Dr. Michael Theune, who was one of my professors during undergrad at Illinois Wesleyan University.

This conversation highlights two topics that are, in my experience, unequivocally the areas where students often feel lost, and that is poetry and creative writing. We can even feel lost as the teachers as well! We might have these intrusive thoughts that our students will never need to read poems, or do creative writing. Or maybe we have the best intentions to embrace poetry and creative writing, but they get skipped because we’re faced with final exams and other assessments.

To combat all of these challenges, we want you to be inspired to intertwine poetry and creative writing into your other content. They don’t have to be separated into contained units. Better yet, poetry and creative writing can be fun! 

The perfect example of this is looking at the poetic turn. Where a poem turns is all about surprise, and it can be a really engaging piece of the poem to discuss with your students. Dr. Michael Theune specializes in the poetic turn, and it’s what you’ll hear us focus on inside this episode. Grab your pen and paper because it’s a good one!

Quick Note: There is an additional section of this interview that is included inside our Poetry Workshop. When you register for the workshop, you’ll get to hear Dr. Theune share the two things he does with his creative writing students every single year that are the most powerful ways to disrupt linear thinking. Register here to access the video and handouts you need to successfully reproduce these lessons in your own classroom!

Meet Dr. Michael Theune:

Dr. Theune is a Professor of English and University Writing Program Director. He writes criticism and poetry. His scholarship has three main concerns: the poetic turn (those amazing places where poems radically change their focus); the assessment of poetry (we do it all the time, so we should probably think deeply and well about it!); and the Romantic poet John Keats ( swoon ). 

He blogs about some of these interests at structureandsurprise.wordpress.com,  voltagepoetry.com, and keatslettersproject.com. He loves all kinds of poems, but his own writing right now focuses on shorter forms: aphorism and haiku. As a teacher, he values and promotes active engagement and creative risk. 

When not immersed in the above, he watches movies, looks at paintings (abstract expressionism is a favorite style), runs the occasional half marathon, and reads and drinks coffee at the Coffee Hound.

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

  • Dr. Theune reflects on his own early poetry experiences in school

  • Dispelling the myth that poetry has to be difficult to teach

  • How to make you feel more comfortable and confident stepping into poetry

  • What the poetic turn is, and whether or not it’s different than a poetic shift

  • What we see in a poem when we come to the turn

  • Advice on crafting a process for how to approach the turn while writing poetry

  • Examples of the most ‘teachable’ types of poetic turns

  • Exploring the idea of interrupting linear thinking

Resources Mentioned:

Related Episodes:

More about Brave New Teaching:

Join hosts Amanda Cardenas (Mud & Ink Teaching) and Marie Morris (The Caffeinated Classroom) in discussions about being brave, trying new things, and all things teaching! As seasoned classroom teachers, Amanda and Marie bring their experience, insight, energy, and oh, so many opinions and ideas... It's time for all teachers to take their classroom and teaching practice into their own hands!

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