Under the heading "Essays for Teachers and Students" there's one called "Adventures in Anaphora" where author Rebecca Hazelton argues that "students write better when they repeat themselves." One great reason to check this posting out is the huge number (and range) of examples of anaphora (from MLK to Obama to Churchill to Ginsberg to Whitman to Mumford and Sons to Homer Simpson (and many in between)) and her clear way explanations of the purpose and effect of anaphora.
I especially like the lesson (towards the end of the article) where she describes how students write poems modeled after Joe Brainard’s book-length poem I Remember.
With these examples in mind, I show students model poems and ask them to write imitations, keeping the anaphora but letting their imaginations run free. I choose examples that reinforce different aspects of poetry as well. For instance, these excerpts from Joe Brainard’s book-length poem I Remember create the atmosphere of a remembered time and place through specific detail:I remember a piece of old wood with termites running around all over it the termite men found under our front porch.I remember when one year in Tulsa by some freak of nature we were invaded by millions of grasshoppers for about three or four days. I remember, downtown, whole sidewalk areas of solid grasshoppers.I remember a shoe store with a big brown x-ray machine that showed up the bones in your feet bright green.After reading this, I have students write an “I remember” poem about a specific place and time, requiring them to focus their poem’s subject. I suggest they choose a place they know well, such as their hometown, the house they grew up in, their high school. Brainard’s poem, with its concrete descriptions, encourages sensual and specific details. The anaphora asks us to return again and again to the well of memory and, like the “I spy” games of their childhood, to articulate what they see there.
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