M(Art)ch Madness!

This is the Open Write, a place for educators to nurture their writing lives and to advocate for writing poetry in community. We are organizing 30 days of poetry in April for National Poetry Month: Verselove. Pledge here to write one or more poems with us.

Our Host: Dave Wooley

Dave lives in State College, Pennsylvania, and he’s not exactly sure how he got there! But, since he’s there, he’s working with pre-service teachers at Penn State University as they prepare to be high school and middle school teachers. He does some rapping, writing, and he’s recently gotten back on skis after a 20 year (or so) hiatus so that he can chase his 11-year-old down mountains. He lives with his wife and their youngest son and looks forward to when the other siblings are able to come home from college and get the band back together! 

Inspiration 

I’m writing from one of my favorite places–Grind City, Bluff City, the Home of the Blues–Memphis, Tennessee, visiting with my son and daughter in law. It just happens that one of my favorite persons from history, the journalist and anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells, is a Memphian. In 2021, the city (finally!) dedicated a statue to her to commemorate her activism, her bravery, and her brilliance. That got me thinking about the role of art and, specifically, sculpture in the creation of public memory. So, I thought it might be fun to take a little trek around Memphis to visit her statue and a couple of other statues commemorating notable Memphis legends and write some ekphrastic poems–poems about works of art.

The other part of my inspiration was a lesson that I observed earlier this week in which one of my student teachers was having her middle school students write “small poems”. The  poems could take any number of forms–haiku, limerick, tanka, cinquain, sijo, acrostic, kwansaba–as long as they were short. 

That made me think about how these forms might work together–small ekphrastic poems–to capture essential moments that are reflected in, or alluded to, in the work of art. Or, perhaps, how in reflecting upon a work of art, that might become a spark for a related idea that could be explored in the burst of a short poem. 

Process

My process included a lot of driving and walking around to check out these statues that I wanted to write about! But for your process, you can choose to follow the ekphrastic model and choose a piece of art upon which to base your poem. That piece of art is completely up to you, and that’s part of the fun about this form!

I chose the haiku as my “small poem” form, but feel free to use your preferred form (or no form at all). I wrote a set of three ekphrastic haiku poems because the idea of three 3-line poems as a poetic unit appealed to me, but again, I’d encourage you to explore whatever form you’d like. I also encourage you to look towards some work or art (any genre) for inspiration and to keep it short! After all, #VerseLove is right around the corner and you’ll need plenty of poetic stamina for that!  

Dave’s Poem

Travels in Memphis 

Reflections on Public Monuments

1. Johnny Cash

Cast forever young
no crowsfeet crisscross, like a
highway’s gravel voice

2. B.B. King

Muddy river rolls
behind, fingers pluck angels 
And ghosts as you smile

3. Ida B Wells

Forged in fierce flames–
mobs burned the Free Speech–your Bronze 
figure still the Headlight

Your Turn

Now, scroll to the comment section below to write your own poem. (This is a public space, so you may choose to use only your first name or initials depending on your privacy preferences.) Not ready? That’s okay. Read the poems already posted for more inspiration. Ponder your own throughout the day. Return later. And, if the prompt does not work for you, that is fine. All writing is welcome. Just write something. Oh, and a note about drafting: Since we are writing in short bursts, we all understand (and even welcome) the typos and partial poems that remind us we are human and that writing is always becoming. If you’d like to invite other teachers to write with us, tell them to subscribe. Also, please be sure to respond to at least three writers.