The Poem for Today

Today I used this poem as the common text for my English classes.

God Says Yes To Me
By Kaylin Haught

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

Before I planned the lesson and made the copies, I asked one of my most trusted teacher-friends what she thought about my teaching it. Even though I love the poem, I was second-guessing myself on account of any religious controversy it might stir. I really wanted to use it as an example of humorous poetry, because our April writing contest is to write a funny poem. In light of that competition, we've read several silly poems in class, but I wanted to talk about a different kind of humor with them, the kind that comes when you turn the conventional on its ear in a silly and playful way.

My friend replied that maybe it would be best if I didn't "teach" the poem so much as "use" it in my class, and by that I think she meant that it wouldn't be wise for me to agree or disagree with what the speaker in the poem says, but I could help my students construct their own meaning from it. In my opinion, this is the most authentic way to teach literature, but I confess that often I get caught up in sharing my own interpretation of whatever we're reading with my students, and it usually overshadows their own.

So today I was more cautious than usual in allowing the students to lead the class discussion on our text, and it went great. They had a lot of questions and comments, but together they figured it out. There were a couple common threads from the conversations in each class, but by far the main one was the fact that there were always four or five kids who couldn't get past the fact that God is female in this poem. "That's just wrong," one student told the group. "Everyone knows God is a guy."

"How can you be sure?" another kid asked.

"Hel-lo! He has a beard!" she answered.

In another class, a few boys argued that the poem was offensive, because it's insulting to God to call him a girl. That didn't go over well with the girls in the group. They wondered why being female would be insulting to anyone, and a spirited discussion ensued. The boys recovered, claiming that it wasn't being female that was the insult, it was being called a girl when you weren't, and then we were back to what do we really know about God, anyway?

One boy could not let it go, and he turned to me, as if I had the final word. "I hear what you're saying about the Bible," I ventured, "but it is a work of faith and not fact. Its truth lies with the believer."

His cheeks were pink from the debate. "Just wait! When you get to heaven," he told me, and silently I thanked him for assuming that I would make it there, "I am going to take you to God and say I told you so!"