A Little Lunchtime Poetry

I'm on a lot of mailing lists.

On any given day, I may receive newsletters about cooking, vegetarian cooking, bread baking, cheese making, teaching, teaching writing, poetry, challenging racism, an insider's look at congress, local news, news in Buffalo, news in the Twin Cities, farming in Maine, cheap travel deals, Swiss tourism, my horoscope, some general spiritual advice, Dog Mountain, upcoming performances in nearby venues, and yes, more (!).

I confess that [of course] many days I simply mark most of that type of message to delete without reading, but not always. That subject line and preheader text that writers and editors work so hard to perfect really does help determine whether that day's correspondence stays in my inbox. Whether I actually get to read it is another step, but I'm really glad that I took the time to read the July newsletter from Challenging Racism the other day. Under their recommendations, I followed a link to an online poetry workshop sponsored by the National Museum of African American History and Culture. 

That's how I found myself on a Zoom call from 12 to 1 this afternoon with the poet Anthony McPherson and a dozen other folks from across the country interested in learning about and writing some ekphrastic poetry. The genre is poetry written in response to a work of visual art, often taking the perspective of an individual in the painting, sculpture, photograph, or other medium.

Today we looked at three photos and a watercolor that are featured in the current exhibit Reckoning: Protest. Defiance. Resilience. McPherson shared some of his ekphrastic poetry inspired by the powerful images, gave us some pointers and direction, showed us how to work through the process, and then gave us some writing time. The writing that a few willing participants shared at the end was amazing: so moving and intense for the short time we had to compose. It's a genre and a process I can easily see using in my classroom.

It felt good to be a learner again, too. I'm almost [almost!] looking forward to getting back to school.