The rain came down on the outside while the ideas flowed on the inside as poet and spoken-word artist Marty McConnell led the third JHPF Workshop, entitled: “Worlds Collide? The Relationship between Written and Spoken Poetry.”
The workshop itself wasn’t so much a collision as a fruitful coexistence. Marty opened the session by explaining how certain types of poems are clearly meant to be read (such as those whose impact depends on the way the lines appear on a page, or those which are not readily grasped at once and warrant re-reading and reflection). Some are also obviously best when performed (as when the poem is written more in the nature of a script or monologue). Most poems fall in between, lending themselves to being read or heard, depending on the intent of the poem and the receptivity of the audience. Marty also encouraged us to be sensitive to the emotional journey of a poem; how we feel at the first line, when that changes, and what it changes to.
We then progressed to a set of exercises designed to strengthen the impact of any poem regardless of where on the read-to-speak scale it lies. We practiced identifying the heart of a poem and a series of visceral scattered touch points in an existing poem. Next, we used these as a starting point that resulted in word lists which we ultimately used to construct our own pieces, based on the “heart” and a set of touch points.
In the second part of the workshop, Marty shared with us several poems from her new in-progress manuscript featuring poems based on cards in the tarot deck, which sparked a whole new set of interesting conversations, such as the alliteration that characterized the poem inspired by the High Priestess, and the challenges of the “drag king” point of view in the poem based on the Magician card.
Check back for information on our next workshop later this year and our next First Tuesdays open reading,which will be held on April 7th at Terrazza Cafe and will feature the poet Barry Wallenstein accompanied by Vincent Chancey on the French Horn.
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