3LCE MultiMedia
TPO Class
Option 4: Poetry in Person
Welcome
back to the Multimedia Lab! In today’s
class, you will listen to recording
of an interview with a poet talking about their work, their
inspirations, and
also often reading their own poetry.
The
goal of this class is to give you an
opportunity to see where you might find listening options for poetry on
the
internet, and to listen to/speak in English about poetry with your
classmates
and your lecteur.
If you are interested in completing Option #4 for your Listening
Portfolio, today is the day to get some ideas!
Step
ONE: CHOOSE
A
POET! To begin, skim through the
different links to recordings listed below and choose a poet that might
be
interesting to you. These recordings are
from two different sites, so they are put into 2 categories to make it
easier
to pick one. You do NOT need to choose
one from each category - just one if that’s all you have
time for.
CATEGORY ONE: Poetry Magazine http://www.poetrymagazine.org/pip_cassettes.html
This site has short 5
minute recordings with 12 different contemporary
poets. (Sometimes the poets read one of
their poems, sometimes not – if not, you can search the web for one of
their
poems to read at least.)
JOHN ASHBERY re-evaluates the "New
York School" of poets and artists, and discusses the impact of the
movies,
paintings, and popular culture on his work. David Bromwich
of Yale conducts the interview. Click here to download a 5-minute audio module
in MP3 format ). 
GWENDOLYN
BROOKS recounts her first
meeting, at age 16, with Langston Hughes, her use of
real-life experience in her work, and her efforts to encourage children
to
write poetry. Poet Alice Fulton conducts the interview. Click here to download a 5-minute audio module
in MP3 format (approx. 3 mb).
RITA DOVE
remembers her parents and grandparents, adolescence in 
ALLEN
GINSBERG
returns to his first encounters with Jack Kerouac and the Beat Poets,
the
counterculture of the '60s, and the creation of "Howl," and traces
the continuing influence of Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, and William
Carlos
Williams. Lewis Hyde, author of The Gift, is the interviewer. Click here to download a 5-minute audio module
in MP3 format (approx. 3 mb).
MAXINE
KUMIN
remembers her friendship with Anne Sexton, and reviews her roles as
mother and
grandmother and writer, life on a horse farm, and her transformation
from a
"light versifier" to a serious poet. Literary historian Alicia Ostriker conducts the interview. Click here to download a 5-minute audio module
in MP3 format (approx. 3 mb).
JAMES
MERRILL
reflects on love and loss and "The Broken Home," feeling and form in
poetry, and tells how he came to write a 17,000-line modern epic with
the help
of a Ouija
board. The
interviewer is poet and critic J. D. McClatchy. Click here to download a 5-minute audio module
in MP3 format (approx. 3 mb).
W. S.
MERWIN
considers the origin of images, the meaning of "surrealism,"
alienation, the assault on the environment, and the search for faith in
the
modern world. James Richardson of 
SHARON OLDS
talks about motherhood, metaphors, teaching, and making art out of real
life in
the 
ADRIENNE
RICH
reconsiders her coming of age in the '50s and the "change of world,"
and the evolution of her own life and work, through the liberation
movements of
the '60s and '70s. Biographer Diane Wood Middlebrook
conducts the interview. Click here to download a 5-minute audio module
in MP3 format (approx. 3 mb).
KARL
SHAPIRO
explains why he first attacked T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and the academic
establishment, what he loves about 
GARY SOTO
recalls field work, baseball games, and family tragedy in a Chicano
boyhood,
and describes the lives of migrant workers and their children, and his
unexpected beginnings and popularity as a poet. Interviewer: Joseph Parisi. Click here to download a 5-minute audio module
in MP3 format (approx. 3 mb).
CHARLES
WRIGHT
remembers growing up in
Click here to download a 5-minute
audio module in MP3 format (approx. 3 mb).
CATEGORY TWO: Fooling
with Words – Poetry Videos
This site has videos
of poets reading their poetry, as well as a short
segment of an interview with the poet.
Some of the links are RealPlayer and work fine, but some are
QuickTime
and can be weird sometimes. If you click
on a QT link and nothing happens, go to the homepage for these
recordings http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/main_video.html
and access the QT link from there and it should work!
The links sometimes take a few seconds to
load – have patience!
Amiri Baraka
reads
"Wise,
Why's Y's" (Africa section)
Interview
segment (2.8 MB)
Lorna Dee Cervantes
reads
"Summer Ends Too Soon"
Interview segment
Lucille Clifton
reads
"won't
you celebrate with me" (2.7 MB)
Interview
segment (3.1 MB)
Mark Doty reads
"Golden
Retrievals"
Interview
segment (3.1 MB)
Shirley Geok-lin
Lim reads
"Riding
into California"
Interview
segment (5.0 MB)
Marge Piercy
reads
"What
are
big girls made of?"
Interview
segment (3.0 MB)
Robert Pinsky
reads
"ABC"
(3.6 MB)
Interview
segment (3.4 MB)
Paul Muldoon
reads
"The
Sightseers"
Interview
segment (4.1 MB)
STEP
TWO: listen
to your recording(s) at
least twice - most of them are short so you could even do it 3 or 4
times. Read STEP THREE so you know what to
do while
you are listening!
STEP
THREE: While listening to
the recording, make any notes you need to for
yourself to help you remember the important points.
How can you describe this poet? What
kind of poetry do you think they
write? For a specific poem, what is the
title? What is this poem about? Is it obvious?
What level of language is this poet using? Are
there many vocabulary words that you
aren’t familiar with? What kind of
audience is this poet trying to reach?
What did the poet say in the interview that you found
interesting? Bizarre? Does anything the poet said change, if at
all, your thoughts about their poetry?
STEP
FOUR: Be prepared to talk
for a few minutes about what you listened to, either
just to a partner or to the whole class.
Your lecteur will tell you which
one to do.
STEP FIVE: This should give
you some ideas if you are
interested in doing Option #4 for your Portfolio!
If so, below are three different Extra Listenings
for more links and websites featuring poetry or
poets to help you begin looking.
EXTRA LISTENING #1: FOOLING WITH WORDS: Poems Only! No interviews, but lots of videos of modern poets reading their work. If you are really struck by a poet, perhaps it will give you some ideas for your portfolio. All you need to do is find an interview with the poet to listen to – search the web – there’s a lot out there.
Some of the links are RealPlayer and work fine, but
some
are QuickTime. If you click on a QT link
and nothing happens, go to the homepage for these recordings http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/main_video.html
and access the QT link from there.
Coleman Barks
reads
"New
Year's Day Nap"
Denise Duhamel
reads
"Kinky"
(excerpt) (1.5 MB)
Deborah Garrison
reads
"Please
Fire Me"
David Gonzalez
reads
"The
Cross
Bronx" (excerpt)
Jane Hirshfield
reads
"The
Poet"
Bob Holman reads
"Rock'n'Roll
Mythology" (excerpt) (1.6 MB)
Galway Kinnell
reads
"After
Making Love We Hear Footsteps"
Stanley Kunitz reads
"Halley's Comet"
Kurtis Lamkin
reads
"jump
mama"
Samuel Menashe
reads
"Salt
and Pepper" (2.1 MB)
W.S. Merwin reads
"Yesterday"
Sharon Olds reads
"The
Clasp"
Joe Weil reads
"Painting
The Christmas Trees" (excerpt) (2.7 MB)
EXTRA
LISTENING #2: THE POETRY FORUM:
http://www.thepoetryforum.org/poets.html
This site has artists,
sometimes the poets themselves, reading
poetry. It also gives ideas for poets to
be researched. Browse and see what
you
find.
EXTRA
LISTENING #3: HARPER COLLINS
http://www.harpercollins.com/hc/features/audio/listening.asp Classic Dead Poets
If you like classic
poetry more than modern stuff, this is the site for
you! This site has audio excerpts of
really famous authors talking and sometimes reading their own work. People like Keats, Dylan Thomas, Robert
Frost, e.e. cummings,
Sylvia Plath, etc.
Be careful as it isn’t just poetry.