Finding my Inner Performer at the Poetry Center

I'm spending the next two mornings in Poetry Out Loud training at the University of Arizona Poetry Center. Yea!

Today we spent time sharing teaching ideas, and Sarah Kortemeier led us through several simple and useful exercises to promote proper use of breath, physical relaxation and comfort, and a sense of community where we can all get over ourselves a little bit in order to serve the poem.

We spent time familiarizing ourselves with our poems (mine is "Ecology" by Jack Collom) and working on memorization.  We also had a bit of time to think about the lesson idea we will share tomorrow.

Tomorrow, after (I'm really hoping!!) some hard-core performance work and feedback, we will recite our poems on video, which will be shared online.  Yikes.  If I would have known that it might have motivated me to eat a little more carefully this summer.  I am not at the height of my physical confidence. However, if you'd like to witness our performance, it is at 12:30 at the Poetry Center.

I've got some studying to do tonight... I know about half the poem.  I wonder if the ellipticizer at the gym is conducive to poetry memorization.  I'll let you know.

Here's some further reading for me by Collom, in Exquisite Corpse: http://www.corpse.org/archives/issue_9/critiques/collom.htm

Here's the poem... I am completely swallowed by the poem when I read it.  I love its rolling, lengthy sentences, his use of sound, and how the interconnectedness of the words themselves creates its own ecology of language, which underscores the idea of our unavoidable place in the natural ecologies of the planet.  I also like the spiritual overtones of the ending.  I'm sure I don't have this poem "all figured out," whatever that means.  Anyway...

Ecology

By Jack Collom

Surrounded by bone, surrounded by cells,

by rings, by rings of hell, by hair, surrounded by

air-is-a-thing, surrounded by silhouette, by honey-wet bees, yet

by skeletons of trees, surrounded by actual, yes, for practical

purposes, people, surrounded by surreal

popcorn, surrounded by the reborn: Surrender in the center

to surroundings. O surrender forever, never

end her, let her blend around, surrender to the surroundings that

surround the tender endo-surrender, that

tumble through the tumbling to that blue that

curls around the crumbling, to that, the blue that

rumbles under the sun bounding the pearl that

we walk on, talk on; we can chalk that

up to experience, sensing the brown here that’s

blue now, a drop of water surrounding a cow that’s

black & white, the warbling Blackburnian twitter that’s

machining midnight orange in the light that’s

glittering in the light green visible wind. That’s

the ticket to the tunnel through the thicket that’s

a cricket’s funnel of music to correct & pick it out

from under the wing that whirls up over & out.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Recommended Reading List from Poet Colleague Christopher Nelson

Chris and I used to teach together at Catalina Foothills High School.  His passion for poetry sparked many young minds there.  He took time off to pursue his MFA, and is currently teaching at University High School in TUSD.

I'm happy to get my hands on this list:
Christopher Nelson's Recommended Readings

And while you're at it, check out his impressive blog, including interviews with many contemporary poets:
Under a Warm Green Linden

His web presence is so much more focused than mine...  :)

Emily Dickinson and Tucson's Big Read

Many of my classes will be participating in one form or another in The Big Read, sponsored by Kore Press and NEA.
The Big Read is a program through National Endowment for the Arts, and this year the featured poet is Emily Dickinson.  Many other organizations are partnering up throughout the fall, including the University of Arizona Poetry Center, to put together an incredible run of events.  Teens may be especially interested in Logan Phillips' Slamming Emily writing and poetry slam workshops.  Logan visited my classroom last year, and really connected with my students and inspired them to write some great poetry.

Emily Dickinson at age 16

Many students are totally unfamiliar with Dickinson's work, and others may stereotype her as an old maid and a hermit writing old-fashioned poetry, but Emily Dickinson was a pre-modern poet, bending and breaking the rules of the poetry of her time. Though she lived in 19th Century Massachusetts, her voice is modern and always surprising. Together with Walt Whitman, she is credited with helping develop a truly American poetic voice. However, I see her as having a more individual voice, especially seeing that her poetry was not widely recognized until the middle of the 20th century.

Below, find a list of some poems which may help engage you with her work. Her poems are categorized by number and title.  The poems were not originally titled, but are conventionally given a title using the first line. The capitalization and punctuation of the titles is true to the original-- Dickinson was known for her unconventional use of punctuation and capitalization. In early volumes of her work, editors changed the capitalization and punctuation to their tastes, but the poems are now treasured for these idiosyncratic details.  Below the poems is a list of Emily Dickinson resources I've collected.

I will continue to revise this page as I find new resources.

 

Selected Poems:

I measure every Grief I meet
Because I could not stop for Death
I heard a Fly buzz
I'm Nobody! Who are you?
There's a certain Slant of Light
The Soul unto itself
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant--

Fantastic Video:
Emily Dickinson – Her True Self from Flash Rosenberg on Vimeo.

 

Emily Dickinson Links

Emily Dickinson Links