Herman Beavers Classroom Issues and Strategies Harper's poems often prove difficult because he is so deft at merging personal and national history within the space of one metaphor. One must be aware, then, of Harper's propensity toward veiled references to historical events. The poems can be seen as obscure or enigmatic, when, in fact, they are designed to highlight a mode of African-American performance. Harper's interviews are often helpful, particularly those interviews where he discusses his poetic technique.
Harper is a story-teller, a performer.
He is adept at the conveyance of nuance in the poems. A valuable strategy is teaching Harper's poems in conjunction with a brief introduction to modern jazz. Team teaching with a jazz historian or an ethnomusicologist while focusing on Harper's strategies of composition is a way to ground the student in Harper's use of jazz as a structuring technique in his poems. Moreover, it allows for dialogue between literary and musical worlds. Since Harper's poems are often about both music and the context out of which the music springs, such a dialogue is important for students to see.