{"id":137,"date":"2007-04-06T10:17:39","date_gmt":"2007-04-06T10:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wabash.edu\/fyi\/2007\/04\/06\/new-ways-to-see\/"},"modified":"2007-04-06T10:17:39","modified_gmt":"2007-04-06T10:17:39","slug":"new-ways-to-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/2007\/04\/06\/new-ways-to-see\/","title":{"rendered":"New Ways to See"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steve Charles\u2014<\/span><\/i> \u201cListen: there was a goat\u2019s head hanging by ropes in a tree.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That first line from her prize-winning poem \u201cSong\u201d<\/a> was my introduction to the much-honored poet Brigit Pegeen Kelly. \u201cSong\u201d is a powerful, beautiful work that haunts me still. And any poet who starts with the command\u2014\u201cListen\u201d\u2014like an apostle, or a village shaman\u2014is not to be trifled with. I respect anyone who can so finely choose her words and craft her work. But a poet with such vision, with words that cut straight to the heart, and images that keep me up at night? Maybe not the person to bring to your kid’s birthday party.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"So yesterday I walked with trepidation into the class in which Ms. Kelly planned to critique and \u201cworkshop\u201d poems by students of our own poet, Marc Hudson.<\/span><\/p>\n

I hadn\u2019t seen their work under Marc\u2019s teaching. Would it be like the post-adolescent drivel that so often populates undergraduate poetry collections?<\/span><\/p>\n

Would Ms. Kelly rake the little \u201carteests\u201d over the coals?<\/span><\/p>\n

A revelation was at hand (and it was no rough beast.)<\/span><\/p>\n

We have student poets at Wabash!<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll give you a few lines to taste.<\/span><\/p>\n

From Bernard Meyer\u2019s poem, \u201cThe Breaking\u201d:<\/span><\/p>\n

    I feel like the ocean that remains silent<\/span>
\n    when the drowning body screams<\/span>
\n    as it is swallowed whole\u2014feeling,<\/span>
\n    in essence,<\/span>
\n    the part of the witness,<\/span>
\n    and the murderer.<\/span><\/p>\n

From Neil Cook\u2019s \u201cEVV,\u201d named after the Evansville airport:<\/span><\/p>\n

    There is no train station<\/span>
\n    in my hometown. There are<\/span>
\n     freight trains, but no<\/span>
\n    place to go to say goodbye.<\/span>
\n    Nowhere to run along<\/span>
\n    outside the window, waving<\/span>
\n    and crying and shouting, "I love you!"<\/span><\/p>\n

From Nic Bitting\u2019s \u201cWinter Waters and Skies\u201d:<\/span><\/p>\n

    A red-tailed hawk circles above me<\/span>
\n    painting his wings into<\/span>
\n    winter sky.<\/span><\/p>\n

And this image from Nick Gregory\u2019s \u201cAfter the Storm\u201d:<\/span><\/p>\n

    Quiet now<\/span>
\n    The aimless bodies drift apart<\/span>
\n    Two white puffs rare across blue sky<\/span>
\n    Sprout trails of fabric that hang<\/span>
\n    and writhe like the drowned folds<\/span>
\n    Of a wedding dress lost at sea.<\/span><\/p>\n

And Ms. Kelly is as generous and skilled a teacher as she is a poet. She told the students she was impressed with the variety and freshness of their work. She involved the entire class in the discussion, and the student poets seemed inspired. Cook and Meyer were still talking about the session an hour after the class, which Marc and Ms. Kelly extended so that we could workshop more poems.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe opened my eyes to the whole poem in ways I hadn\u2019t seen," Marc said about her work with Bernard Meyer. And Marc is the finest nurturer of young poets I know.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"After such a day, and after Ms. Kelly\u2019s reading last night, I was reminded of a line from a 1980s Bruce Cockburn song, \u201cMaybe the Poet\u201d:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe you and she may not agree, but you need her to show you ways to see.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Brigit Kelly does that for me in her poetry, and did so with her teaching and reading Thursday.<\/span><\/p>\n

But as a 52-year-old man, I was surprised to have my jaded eyes opened by men 30 years my junior.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s part of the exhilaration of working here. Students you think you know surprise you\u2014 they get better at what they do, more aware of themselves and their world, become wiser before your eyes.<\/span><\/p>\n

My faculty friends speak of the genuine pleasure of learning from their students. I think I got a taste of that yesterday.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In photos:<\/span><\/i> (upper right)<\/span><\/i> Brigit Pegeen Kelly talks with students as she signs books following her reading; (lower left) Neil Cook and Bernard Meyer take a closer look at their work following Ms. Kelly’s workshop.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steve Charles\u2014 \u201cListen: there was a goat\u2019s head hanging by ropes in a tree.\u201d That first line from her prize-winning poem \u201cSong\u201d was my introduction to the much-honored poet Brigit Pegeen Kelly. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"w_featured_image_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}