Teachers Act Up!

As mentioned previously, my luck poetry course had the good fortune to have two visiting poets this semester and the option to create “visual broadsides” in response to one of their poems.  Here are some sample broadsides in response to Ida Stewart’s gorgeous poems from her book “Gloss”–my favorite new book of poetry.  The experiments are wild, smart, and shed light on the oppressive environmental destruction occurring in the name of coal mining in West Virginia.  The poems model the potential to amplify language, stretch it to its core components, to explode syntax and phonology, yet remain grounded in telling a vital story that is at once personal and universal, devastating and hopeful.  Big rave for Stewart’s book “Gloss” and for these students whose stunning visual responses raise the poetry bar!

My poetry students and I have had two guest poets visit our class this semester.  The first was the great UGA alum-poet, Ida Stewart (who visited our class via Skype!) and the second was the wonderful Sholeh Wolpé, visiting us in person via the Georgia Circuit poetry invitation and in collaboration with the Georgia Review (thank you Georgia Review!).  Students were given the option to choose any poem by either poet and write either a straight “craft essay” or to create a visual broadside–interpreting the poets through a visual medium and fewer written words.

This assignment never ceases to amaze me and I am reminded of arts power to speak to art, the importance of multimedia response, and the endless creativity of which we are all capable.  Take a look at these stunning visual renderings of Wolpé’s  poetry–she writes from the perspective of brave witness, testifying to human’s potential for great violence and great healing.

A warm and wide thank you to both these fantastic poets, Ida & Sholeh, for sharing so much of themselves, their understandings of craft, of politics and emotion in poetry, of art-making, and art education.  Thank you!!