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!