THE UNIVERSE: WHAT IF IT'S ALL POETRY?

ESO/T. Preibisch

We have been on earth for thousands of years.

Wandering and wondering, roaming and  researching, exploring and examining our world.
Seeking to understand, to number, to order, to name-- all that is...

Ever attempting to answer the perennial questions:
What is real?  What is true?
How did it all begin and how does it all work?
Who are we?
And why are we here?

What if the answers are more complex than we ever imagined, yet far simpler than we have guessed?

What if it's all poetry?

I recently discovered several amazing books that seem to suggest just such an answer.

In CosmoLyrical: what if it's all poetry?, Phievalon (stage name of spoken-word artist Phil Long) offers answers from across the cosmos, pointing us to language  and ideas and poetry as the question and the answer.   And the source of it all-- A Poet!

In an excerpt from What if it's all poetry?  He offers the following:

What if matter is actually made up of what really matters?..... what if atoms were iambs.... and rocks  are merely metaphors?....

And in another excerpt he asserts:

That we are absurd,
we spoken words,
language in dust,
poetry in protein,
amino acid adventures,
prose, still waiting for answers.

This IS my reason to believe; a fairy-tale God-poet
writing souls into eternity
with dust...

Click  to listen to What if it's all poetry? or  watch a live performance at the Java Monkey in Decatur, Georgia.

Likewise,  we are invited to continue our ponderings and wonderings about the cosmos, our existence, and the whys of it all in The Universe Verse by James Lu Dunbar.

His book serves up a double dish of delight--- poetry and comics converge to explain the origins of the universe, our own earth, and life, including human beings  He spans all time and theories, from the Big Bang to the invention and benefits of writing.  In between he considers energy, space, time, matter, DNA, and much more.

He ends with an invitation to continue to question what we know and what is known;

While science is new
and still in it's youth,
already it's shown us
such beautiful truth,
all it needs is a question
and some willing sleuth.
Do you like to wonder?
Do you like to ask?
You might be just who
we need for this task....
The universe is a chain
 and you're one lucky link,
 so be grateful and kind,
 and do try to think!

Science in rhymes and frames.
Theories in verse and panels.

In order to appreciate this book, you must see the text integrated with the images--- They cannot be separated.  Click here to see images, as well as a brief  video allowing you to peek inside the book.


Poets have always contemplated, metaphorized, and versified the universe, their world, and their place in both.  They have pondered in galactic generalities, as well as personalized specificities.  We have volumes of poetry which support the notion that it's all poetry.


 In Verse & Universe: Poems about Science and Mathematics, editor Kurt Brown has gathered  quintessential representations of such poetry by poets we know and love, including Charles Simic, Howard Nemerov, Albert Goldbarth, Jorie Graham, John Updike, William Stafford, Rita Dove, Billy Collins, and more.

This collection of verses tackles all that exists.  The selections include topics such as the universe, space, time, matter, heavenly bodies, earth, animals, and humans, as well as theory and speculation, and numbers.

Science and math translated into poetic wisdom, reflections, and questions.
Theory and research in stanzas.

One of the epigraphs chosen by Brown, a quote by Edward Abbey from The Journey Home, says it all:

Any good poet, in our age at least, must begin with the scientific view of the world; and any scientist worth listening to must be something of a poet, must possess the ability to communicate to the rest of us his sense of love and wonder at what his work discovers.

Abbey seems to agree--- it's all poetry.


I remember my  amazement at Carl Sagan's Cosmos.  These poetic texts on the same subjects make perfect companions to Sagan's now classic scientific work.

And not only is it all poetry on the cosmic scale; it is all poetry in our personal lives, as we consider where we fit in the larger plan, place, and purpose.

In the Bible, Ephesians 2:10 asserts that we are God's workmanship,  his masterpiece, his opus, his handiwork------  the Greek word here is poiema.  
Yes....we are God's poems.
It is all poetry.

In poetry, we can  seek, name, number, and order our lives in the context of the cosmos. We can observe, reflect, and question who we are individually, as well as cosmically.


In Secrets to the Universe, Wit Woliczko has recorded, in haiku and senryu, personal observations and theories of his own life in the universe.  Here are two samples:

How does one slow time?
Listen to every second....
for Infinity.


I anticipate
to look at the world anew
with every poem


And young writer, eleven -year old Savion Harris writes poetry to explore his narrow, homeless universe. His poem Questions is included in  2014 Rattle Young Poets Anthology.

Who am I?
Where do I belong?
Do I have a home?...
I'm not even sure if
I exist.

And finally, as we consider our lives in our world, lived in relationship to all that exists, there is nothing that we think, feel, say, do or encounter, that is not poetry, that cannot become a poem.

So in closing I offer Everything is a Poem: The Best of J. Patrick Lewis.  In this collection,we find people, animals, places, riddles and reading, nature and nonsense---- all become poems.


What if it's all poetry?

Today's Deeper Writing Possibilities

Consider those perennial questions:

What is real?  What is true?
How did it all begin and how does it all work?
Who are we?
And why are we here?

Write a meditation exploring these questions.


Consider the notion that it is all poetry.  Write an essay, personal narrative, or poem entitled What if it's all poetry?

GRAVESTONES: WRITING A LIFE

What do we write about those who have died?

What do we write to and for those who are left?

Obituaries memorialize the life of our deceased loved one and are often the first piece we write after a death.  I carry a laminated card  of my father's obituary and picture in my Bible.

 I just reread his online obituary, along with the messages of condolences that appear there, as well.

In response to the news of a death, we write those messages designed to comfort, strengthen and give a degree of peace.

With our new technology, we can do this in so many way--online guest books, texts, emails and, of course, the traditional sympathy card.  I have saved the many beautiful cards I received with messages of encouragement and support.

We hear sermons and homilies preached by pastors offering theological assurances and celebrations of a life well-lived.

We remember, along with family and friends of the deceased, as they offer  reflections, remarks and tributes.

Click here to read a tribute to my father, a version of which I offered at his funeral in February.

And then comes the final writing--we must arrange words to be carved in stone--  on headstones, or grave markers, crypt walls or tombs,

All somber and serious.

But... all doesn't have to be so grave-- no pun intended.

My friend, Kevin Cordi, whose own father recently died, sent me a link to an article about the most fascinating cemetery in Sapanta, Romania.  The Cimitirul Vesel or " Merry Cemetery".

In this small town, Woodcarver  Stan Ion Patras collects the stories of his neighbors, observing their lives and taking notes day by day, then carving their stories after their deaths.

According to this article:

Death is not always as grim as it seems. At least not in Sapanta.

That’s because bodies laid to rest in this Romanian town get another chance to tell their tales.

The gravestones in Sapanta’s Cimitirul Vesel, or “Merry Cemetery” are brief glimpses into the lives of the people they immortalize. Over 1,000 blue wooden crosses have crowded into this cemetery, each illustrated with a bright, colorful picture and a darkly-humorous poem.

There’s no point in hiding secrets in this small town in Maramures, so people’s lives are captured honestly in their epitaphs, with none of the sanitizing that happens at many modern funerals. Flaws accompany the deceased into the afterlife — whether it’s a drinking habit or an adulterous relationship.

Click here to read the rest of this article and to see the illustrated crosses. 

Hmmmm.... I wonder exactly what Woodcarver Stan Ion Patras would carve on my cross... or your cross.   What secrets would be captured from my life and  be humorously memorialized in poetry?

J. Patrick Lewis offers two books in this same darkly humorous, poetic vein that will delight children and adults alike.


In Once Upon A Tomb: Gravely Humorous Verses, we find 22  short, gravely comical, grimly hilarious poems or epitaphs for folks of various occupations.  Giggles and guffaws are guaranteed as we approach a subject around which we  normally tip-toe and whisper.

Here are two selections:

CAFETERIA LADY

Here be the bones of Mabel Grady
Extremely thoughtful school-lunch lady
She never served a Jell-O mold
If it was more than six weeks old.


UNDERWEAR SALESMAN
Our grief'
Was Brief

Last Laughs: Animal Epitaphs takes us beyond  humans, to morbidly and humorously mourning our pets and other animals .  Patrick has teamed with Jane Yolen to offer witty and wickedly funny last words for our furry, winged, and scaled friends.

Sample the play on words, puns, and fun:


Ciao, Cow
This grave is peaceful,
the tombstone shaded,
but I am not here--
 I've been cream-ated.

In this excerpt from title poem, Last Laughs, he urges us to:

...Read the words
 of bugs and fishes,
beasts and birds.
They know it's not
all gloom and doom
that's written

once upon a  tomb.

What do we write about the dead?
What will someone write about us after we are gone?

Today's Deeper Writing Possibility

Reflect on the life of someone who has died.

Write an obituary or epitaph for that person.

Can you also write a humorous poem in their memory?

Write your own obituary, being brutally honest.  What secret might you include about your life in a humorous way?

CAWP FALL FORUM 2013: ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS AND CONVERSATIONS

I spent this past Saturday with my favorite kind of people-- writing project folks.

Saturday was the Columbus Area Writing Project Fall Forum.

And what a grand to time we had.  

We renewed friendships and made new ones.

We continued old conversations and asked new questions.

In  most sessions, we also wrote.  That's what writing project folks do.

Our conversations were initiated in the morning by JoBeth Allen.

Her work with family partnerships left us assessing the relationships in our own schools and communities
She highlighted the differences between what we commonly believe or have heard about parent involvement and  the fact that research actually tells us that not all parental involvement is created equal.  It matters what kind of involvement.

She suggested a telling activity for all classrooms or schools to try.

List everything your school is doing in the following three columns.

•  Increases student learning 
•  Builds stronger relationships
•  Neither of the above but we keep doing it anyway 

So what is the best kind of parent involvement?

According to Henderson and Mapp ( 2002) we should be aiming for  family-school partnerships that foster respectful relationships, are linked to student learning, and also support student learning at home.

How can we do that?

JoBeth's answer  and the focus of her work is  sharing and valuing  family funds of knowledge.
One way to accomplish that  is the Family Dialogue Journal.

As this effective strategy has developed, teachers of students of all ages K-12 have created a variety of specific methods of implementation.  But in essence, each student takes home his dialogue
 journal after having worked with a group in the classroom  to address the following:

What have we learned this week to share with our families?

What question will we ask our families? 

The rich sharing and conversations that resulted in the samples she shared with us, from across age groups promoted an incorporation of family funds of  knowledge in the classroom and curriculum that no "curriculum night " could.

For more from JoBeth check out the books she shared with us or see this article.

  


After lunch J. Patrick Lewis shared writing wisdom, school experiences and , of course, read us poems.
Pat's words of wisdom included the following:

• Children will not gravitate to poetry. They must be led to it.
• Surround your students  with all kinds of poetry, not just what you like.
• Children are notoriously bad at reading poetry in public--they need models and time to practice.
• Reading is important. Samuel Johnson said Never trust a writer who does not read twice as much as he writes.
•  Most people have had uniformly bad college poetry experiences in which students were required to analyze poems and scour them for meaning.  Instead we should read poetry for the AHA moment-- that phrase/sentences structure we have never seen before.

He shared some specific writing advice for young writers (and us grown folks, as well.) 

• Imitate great pieces.
• Always read out loud so that your ears have as much fun as your mouth.
• Try not to rhyme.  Children are bad at it. They don't have the time or take the time to do it well and do not have the necessary vocabulary.
• If you catch an adjective, kill it!  

This is the second time this week I have heard anti-adjective talk .Nouns already contain or imply the adjectives you might be tempted to use. Now, of course, I am on the lookout for unnecessary  modifiers in my own writing and that of others..  Pat gave examples -- pesky insect and dark cave.

He shared Jane Yolen's tip for writing and my new favorite piece of advice for myself-- BIC or Butt in Chair.

For more  wonderful words, check out  the books (there are more than 80) and  to one of the poems, to which he treated us, Poetry Is.... 

   
  
 In addition to these fantastic speakers,  and the thought- provoking conversations they both initiated, we were further engaged, as our CAWP Teacher Consultants led concurrent sessions ranging in topics, from flipped classrooms to slam poetry, from  teacher activism to Google tools, from writing in science class to the newest children's books.

My head hurt when I got home.

The good kind of hurt where my brain was expanding to accommodate the new ideas and thinking.
The good kind of hurt where my mind was raising questions I didn't know I had.
The good kind of hurt where I am already thinking about how to use what I heard.

That always happens when I spend the day with my favorite kind of folks- Writing Project people.

It's not too early for you to begin to think about joining us for the CAWP 2014 Summer Writing Institute.
Watch our website for applications beginning in January.

Today's Deeper Writing Possibilities

When was the last time you engaged in a formal learning activity or professional development event?

Reflect on that experience. 

What were the highlights for you?

How did you use the information you gained?

What questions do you still have related to the new information?

Write about this learning event.  You may want to simply share what you learned or a plan you have developed to incorporate the new learning in your work.

You may want to write an essay responding to the information shared or a poem reflecting on  the experience.

J.PATRICK LEWIS: OCTELA 2013

I spent this past Friday at the OCTELA (Ohio Council of  Teachers of English Language Arts) 2013 Spring Conference.

I spent this past Friday in the company of other teachers, lovers of books, writers and authors and poets, old friends, new friends, and some I won't meet until next year or the year after.

I spent this past Friday talking, learning, thinking and...  wanting still more.

The OCTELA Spring Conference always inspires better teaching, higher learning, and critical thinking--always  presents new ideas and opportunities to revisit, reclaim, reaffirm or rework old ones, and always challenges us try something radically different.  Thanks Sarah Ressler Wright and the entire OCTELA 2013 Conference Committee!

I had the privilege of meeting J. Patrick Lewis  very early in the morning--he signed the book I had already purchased. (I visited Greg and Jan Michael's (Michaels Associates) table again later in the day to buy more books --no one who knows me will be surprised by that fact.)

We had an opportunity to talk briefly.  I now know what J. stands for --and his signature  was positively a work of art.  I told him he set the bar extremely high for book signing. I will need to rethink my whole approach to this art.

As the opening keynote speaker, his wise and witty words inspired many tweet and retweets. My own tweet from this session is below.

Robin Holland ‏@rholland5

22 Mar

Poetry is... Sound of silence amplified. Daily clues to the ordinary. Subjects for poetry are everywhere. --J. Patrick Lewis. #OCTELA

He spends half of his life writing fun, humorous verse--what he calls ludic verse, and the other half writing serious historic or informational texts. Surprisingly, he has written 85 books. I must own about 20 of his books, but didn't realize just exactly how prolific he had been.

He talked with us about the importance of priming the pump with poetry that children will enjoy and the essential-ness of verbal play, the necessary-ness  of word play.  For more extensive information about J. Patrick Lewis click here  to read an article published Language Arts when he was awarded the NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children in 2011.

Some J. Patrick Lewis Thoughts

Nothing succeeds like failure. If you are failing your are trying. Go on, go on, and keep on failing. only next time, try to fail better (Lewis quoting Thomas Beckett)

Our classrooms must be safe places where risk-taking is the norm. If we establish communities where it is safe to make mistakes, learning is multiplied exponentially.

Children are practicing. they are not poets 

What he meant, I think was that children were still playing and learning---not accomplished or finished.   This one, however,  I have to meditate on--- I always encouraged my students to think of themselves as writers and poets and to act like writers and poets.

I have written 85 books, and I still get rejected. Everybody gets rejected.

I always used to joke that I was going to publish a book of the rejection slips for my poems and poetry manuscripts--I guess in this sense we are all never "finished".

Subjects for poetry are everywhere.

I agree wholeheartedly with this one, thus my tweet above. I  also absolutely loved his several definitions of poetry. 

According to J. Patrick Lewis, poetry is:

Sound of silence amplified.

Daily clues to the ordinary.

Frozen fire. 

The midwife at the birth of the alphabet. 

A blind date with enchantment.

Bonus Writing Strategies to Try 

 I also learned two writing techniques --one quick and easy, one more familiar and serious

Tailgater
A tailgater is a couplet in which the first line is from a well-known poem.   The second line is your own. 

See J. Patrick Lewis's guest blog post on  David L. Harrison's Blog for some very funny children and adult examples of this form.

Mask poem--This is a poem that is written and read in someone else's voice. 

 Near the end of his session, he read the poem The Innocent, which is written in the voice of Mamie Carthan Till (the mother of Emmett Till) and included in When Thunder Comes: Poems for Civil Rights Leaders.

After hearing this new term at the conference, I was treated to a mask sermon this past Sunday as my priest, Fr. Karl Ruttan, for the entire duration of his Sermon,  took on the persona of the Centurion who was forever changed after  witnessing the crucifixion.

Today's Deeper Writing Possibilities

J. Patrick Lewis defined poetry in poetic and metaphoric, yet concrete ways.  

How do you define poetry?  Write a sentence or two defining or describing poetry--several lines that create a visual definition or image in words.

Select a well-known poem.  Use the first line of that poem to begin a couplet in which you supply the second line to create a tailgater.

Try writing a mask poem.  Who will you be? Whose voice and perspective will you present in your poem?