1. “Therefore” is a word the poet must not know. - Andre
Gide
This quote seems to define (by negation) the vocation of a
poet. What might Gide think it is? Do you agree? If not, what do you think is?
2. Poetry has gone abroad. Imagine and compose the letter it
writes back home.
3. Describe (in any style) or visually illustrate the face
of “Poet”.
[Post by Jackson Vaughan]
These are all very thought-provoking poetry problems, I like all 3 a lot! They leave a lot of room for imagination and tweaking but at the same time create a solid frame of thought. Nice!
ReplyDeleteI agree, these are great! My favorite is the first one, I like the quote. I'm not answering the prompt exactly, but I do have some thoughts in relation to the quote: "Therefore" is an interesting word (it is a word that I like, and there are all sorts of fabulous Latin words that mean therefore, like ideo, ergo, and igitur), but I like the idea that a poet shouldn't know such a word. It reminds me of the philosophy of the impressionists: purely capturing what is in the moment, without trying to draw conclusions. "The flower is beautiful" instead of "the flower is beautiful and therefore I am happy." You don't need the "therefore" -- let the readers draw their own conclusions.
ReplyDeleteThe third question is especially interesting because it is so broad about what you define "Poet" to be. This could be interpreted as drawing the most famous poet, such as Whitman or Angelou, but it could also be taken as meaning just the most general poet that you could draw. The description is also intrigueing, as you could desribe their face, personality, or anything else about them.
ReplyDeleteThe third question has a little detail, the capitalization of "Poet", that made it stand out to me. It's asking us to illustrate the face of a generic poet, which in this case may not even a be a literal face. I think any visual answer to this problem would make some sort of commentary on the nature of poetry.
ReplyDeleteThe third prompt is interesting, but I have no idea what you would do with it. The other two prompts are both open ended yet specific enough to sort of direct a response. I feel like Ben discusses possible interpretations in fine detail but I don't know if any of those really satisfy the prompt particularly because poet is a noun but you treat it like an adjective in this prompt without a specifier like "a" or "the." I think Nicholas' insight is also interesting, but I know if I read this prompt I would have been more confused than anything because there is no general direction. As a teacher I think there's room for free reign and encouraging creativity but things could also be a little bit more directed.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I love your blog theme haha. It's very cute/fits the theme of poetry pretty well! Anyway, back to scheduled programming. I really liked the second problem. I think it would be really fun to write a letter from poetry in general, but with the added twist I think the result could be really awesome. Good job :)
ReplyDeleteThe second one sounds kind of interesting. I wonder where poetry would go abroad to; I always thought of poetry as kind of a universal thing. Then again, this would probably be something to talk about in the letter. The first one also really makes you think, too. It's interesting how you say that the vocation of a poet can be negated by one word, so that word must carry a lot of weight.
ReplyDeleteI really like the prompts that you gave, although I am a bit confused on how to go about answering the third one. It's really enjoyed the different angle at which you chose to answer the prompt, hitting the idea of poetry generally, as opposed to asking questions about the particular poems, which is the path I took.
ReplyDeleteI really like the prompts that you gave, although I am a bit confused on how to go about answering the third one. It's really enjoyed the different angle at which you chose to answer the prompt, hitting the idea of poetry generally, as opposed to asking questions about the particular poems, which is the path I took.
ReplyDeleteI really love the idea of a second poem, because I can just imagine the imagery and description that would be in the letter home. It could also turn out to be a nice, whimsical lyric poem.
ReplyDeleteNice prompts! I especially liked the 2nd one, where the poem writes home. I also wonder what poetry's parents may be like! I also like the first prompt, though I would definitely disagree with Andre Gide.
ReplyDeleteGreat problem prompts, Jackson. The Gide quotation is very evocative, and what you've asked of us in relation to it is excellent. I love the idea of a letter from the poem abroad. What would the American poem tell us about its adventures in Kenya? In Greece? In the Netherlands?
ReplyDelete