BEAUTY
Beauty
is a fat black woman
walking the fields
pressing a breezed
hibiscus
to her cheek
while the sun lights up
her feet
Beauty
is a fat black woman
riding the waves
drifting in happy oblivion
while the sea turns back
to hug her shape
Grace Nicholls
Since Jeremy Harmer read this poem at Istek-elt this year, I have been searching for it. I knew I had it somewhere in my files and at last I found it.
I love this poem for many reasons.
So here is a sample lesson plan but I’ll be glad to hear ideas from you.
- Ask students to finish the statement ‘Beauty is —–‘
- Write all the words on the board and prepare a word cloud.
- As Jeremy Harmer suggested do wall dictation dividing the class into teams.
- Ask students to read the poem and discuss the followings.
- ‘Beauty is in the eye of beholder’
- fashion, idols, same kind of people everywhere.
- first impressions
- physical differences and bullies
- Is it really important to be beautiful?Why?
5. The poem is great for practising participles and time clauses. Write the skeleton of the poem on the board and ask them to write their own poems
Beauty is a/an+adj+noun
Going somewhere
Doing something
While something else is happening
I really want to use this poem next year in one of my lessons. And here is mine
Beauty
is a little angle
running in the school yard
in her strawberry cake coat
playing with her friends cheerfully
while my eyes watch
thinking how beautiful she is
Beauty
is a little girl
wearing thick glasses
admiring her friends
running in the yard
while her mum watches her
thinking how beautiful she is.
How creative! I love this class. It’s really interesting to introduce the topic “beauty” “subjectivity” in the classroom. I like your poem!
Your suggested tasks are resourceful. You can also share a WallWisher with your students. They can reply: “What’s beauty for you?” They can attach a painting they consider beautiful, a picture, music, a song and so on.
Thanks for this inspiring class.
Marisa
Thanks Marisa,
I’m glad that you liked the idea.Wallwisher will be great as you suggested with the images they choose. Now I tthink maybe they can create glogsters for their poems
Eva
I really love this too. If I was working with adult students I would expand this lesson into a discussion about how photographed models are airbrushed… and how the image of what beauty is has changed over the generations, getting them to give examples from their childhoods.
Beauty
is a teacher
whose smile never fades no matter what
seeing loveliness around her
instead of pain and wrath
Beauty
is a woman
who patiently sets aside
for the sake of her children
all vanity and pride
Thank you Jade for dropping by and leaving this beautiful poem here 🙂
Eva
thanks for sharing a lot of classroom ideas. I am learning a lot here.
A great lesson suggestion. I did something similar with the video poem Waiting. I asked students to write their own poems using verbs in -ing forms (e.g. Talking… Looking for… ). Will use this one too.
Will come back with my version of “Beauty is…” – not feeling very creative at the moment 🙂
LEO