Poetry and the Poetic @ SUNY Geneseo English
Hi all,
Today David and I did our Great Day presentation at the Gazebo. We were supposed to do a “tour” of certain locations on campus, but the weather prevented us from doing this. Instead, we stayed sheltered beneath the Gazebo where David and I performed our pieces inspired by the campus. Here is mine: Continue reading “Great Day at the Gazebo!”
Hello friends!
So lately I feel like I have been straddling the line between page poetry and slam poetry. Oftentimes I find myself wanting to write page poetry but I end up writing slam instead. I am trying to marry these two forms together because I really love them both and want them to work together. My biggest concern is that slam poetry isn’t “complex” enough–that there often isn’t something that needs to be figured out. But that is what I like about slam! It is raw and real and doesn’t require more than the listeners open ears. Sometimes I don’t want my audience to do work–I want them to know exactly what I’m feeling…
I recently wrote this piece and while I want it to be a page piece, it truly reads like slam: Continue reading “Page Poetry vs Slam Poetry”
Hi all!
I just realized I haven’t been on the blog in a while–oops! Seems like the end of the semester is creeping up on me!
These past two semesters have been crazy whirlwinds for me and I’ve found myself letting go of a lot of things that I am reluctant to depart from. Today I was thinking about how badly I miss writing slam poetry, and found myself listening to it.
Kevin Kantor’s “Honest Confessions on Letting Go” has been one of my favorite slam pieces in the Button Poetry collection. I always find myself going back to his stuff–along with Neil Hilborn’s, of course.
Lytton–I apologize if I’ve posted this piece on the blog during a previous workshop, but I do want to say something about this piece (and poetry in general) that I didn’t recognize before. I think that as time passes our perception of poetry changes based on our perception of the world. If I go back and read an old piece I wrote freshman or sophomore year, I find that that poem was created from an old version of me. I am only starting to recognize that I am constantly changing. While this is not the most pleasant thing to admit, I think that it’s important to recognize the importance of letting go; Kevin Kantor does so beautifully.
Hi all!
I don’t know if any of you have heard of the national recitation contest “Poetry Out Loud,” but my high school participated in it and required all students to memorize a poem and recite it in front of the class. The students then voted on who they thought should go on from the classroom competition to the school-wide competition. One particular poem that I loved while I was senior in high school was Robert Frost’s “After Apple Picking.” I’m not sure if I decided to recite this for POL because I loved the poem, or if I found it after. Anyway, here it is: Continue reading “an old favorite of mine!”
Hi all!
I know we talked about this a little in class, but I’ll repeat myself so everyone knows what I’m blogging about. A couple of weeks ago our writing exercise was to write a piece after making a list of words we find central to us as poets. I requested, in my personal blog post, that you guys comment the lists you came up with so everyone could see them. In class this week I mentioned how the poem that came from my list was one of my favorites so far. Here it is: Continue reading “In Relation to my “Show Me Your List” Post…”
Hi all,
If you haven’t read exercise 5 already here is the first task of the assignment:
“Begin by brainstorming a list of words you care about, including both words you use often and words you never use but would like to. You don’t need a long list, but you might need to write a long list to get to a shorter one, if that makes sense: you want words that you’re really motivated to work with, rather than words that happened to occur to you.”
I think it would be really cool to see the lists of words that each of us have come up with. Maybe someone will notice something about your list of words that you never noticed before. Here’s mine: Continue reading “Show Me Your List!!!”
Hi all,
This weeks exercise encourages us to write about something political. I just came across this slam performance by Theresa Davis. The piece is protesting the governments hand in women’s rights. I have listened to it at least 5 times now; it’s so powerful and important.
Some of my favorite lines:
“If I had wanted you down there, you would have been invited.”
“If your god really wanted you in my pants he’d have made you me.”
“The day another human being falls from your body like grace, that’s the day you get to walk in my shoes.”
Please watch and let me know what you think.
-Ari
Hi all,
I found myself struggling when deciding what to post on the blog this week. I was looking through some of my books for inspiration, and I figured I would post some of my favorite pieces from Rupi Kaur’s “milk and honey.” Her book is currently one of the best-selling contemporary collections of poetry.
Regarding Kaur’s sources, I believe she is writing (a) to help her readers through traumatic experiences similar to her own, (b) about what it means to be a minority (regarding her gender and race), and (c) about relationships (familial and romantic). These are the sources I notice the most, but I’m sure they don’t stop here.
My absolute favorite poem of hers is on page 51:
Hi everyone!
Over the winter break I needed to complete a 20 practicum for my Adolescent Ed major. This meant I needed to observe/participate in/lead a high school English classroom for the required time. While I didn’t plan to spend more than 20 hours working with my favorite English teacher, I ended up completing 29 hours! Continue reading ““College-style” Workshop at the High School Level”
Hi all,
Last semester I took Fiction II with Rachel Hall. The class after Trump was elected, Hall gave us this poem which continues to resonate with me:
Good Bones
by Maggie Smith