February Poetry Month
Read poems about love and friendship and share them with your students:
“Your Catfish Friend” by Richard Brautigan
“How Do I Love Thee?” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“Resignation” by Nikki Giovanni
“This Morning I Pray for My Enemies” by Joy Harjo
“The Awakening” by James Weldon Johnson
“To a Friend who sent me some Roses” by John Keats
“Having a Coke with You” by Frank O’Hara
“Red Brocade” by Naomi Shihab Nye
Lesson plan
Two-Way Love
Studying the Poems
1. Love in a Life
By Robert Browning (1812 - 1889)
Room after room,
I hunt the house through
We inhabit together.
Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her,
Next time, herself!—not the trouble behind her
Left in the curtain, the couch’s perfume!
As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed anew,—
Yon looking-glass gleamed at the wave of her feather.
Yet the day wears,
And door succeeds door;
I try the fresh fortune—
FEBRUARY POETRY MONTH
INTERPRIMAIR EUROPE
Range the wide house from the wing to the centre.
Still the same chance! she goes out as I enter.
Spend my whole day in the quest,—who cares?
But ‘tis twilight, you see,—with such suites to explore,
Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune!
2. How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Objectives
Students will:

Hone their visual noticing and questioning skillsIdentify connections and metaphors

Understand two different perspectives expressed by people in love with each other
FEBRUARY POETRY MONTH
INTERPRIMAIR EUROPE
Pre-Activities
Whole Class Warm-up:

Ask your students to complete the following sentence in a whip-around: Love is….

They are to complete it with one word or a short phrase

Write these on the board in the front of the room so your students can refer to the list later
Small Group Noticing Activity: The Clasped Hands of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Harriet
Goodhue Hosner (1839-1908)
Note: For this activity you will need either a SmartBoard or a computer with internet connected to a
projector.
The Clasped Hands of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning is a sculpture in the collection of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Please make the image full screen, and as you ask the
questions below, you can pan the image, and zoom in on particular parts of the sculpture, as you like.
Give them several minutes to look over the image from different vantage points.
In their journals, ask your students to write answers to the following questions:

What do they notice (see)? Ask them to be as specific as possible.

If your students give you an interpretation, ask them what in the sculpture leads them to
that interpretation.

How are the hands clasped?

What does this sculpture tell you about the relationship of the two people? What details in
the sculpture tell you this?

What does it tell you about their love? Again give details to back up your interpretation.
Place your students in heterogeneous groups of no more than four. Ask them to share what they
wrote, and have one person act as a recorder/reporter for the group.
Ask the recorder/reporters to tell the whole class the results of their discussion.
Write what the reporters say on the board in the front of the room for future reference.
Collaborative Reading
Ask students to re-form their small groups. Give half of the groups the poem by Robert Browning;
give the other half the poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
In their groups, ask:

One person to read the poem out loud, while the others in the group read and listen.

A second person to read the poem out loud while the others in the group read and listen

A different person to be recorder/reporter

All the people in each group to write down what jumped out at them in what they heard and
read
FEBRUARY POETRY MONTH
INTERPRIMAIR EUROPE

What more did they learn about how their poet loved the other?

What descriptions or symbols in the poem back up their new understandings?
As a whole class, ask the Robert Browning groups to report in. Ask the Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Groups to report in. Record key ideas on the board.
After Reading the Poems
Conduct a whole class discussion around the following question: What were some of the
characteristics of the love between Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning? How do you
know?
Vocabulary
Ask your students to keep a running list on the front board in the room of the words in the poems
they do not understand. These may include:
Thou
Shalt
Cornice-wreath
Yon
Alcoves
Importune
FEBRUARY POETRY MONTH
INTERPRIMAIR EUROPE