Poets in Southern Spaces
INTRODUCTION: The links below represent an ongoing series of original videos of poets reading and discussing their poems in locations they write about. These are contemporary poets who are giving voice to experiences in southern regions such as the Black Belt, Carolina Piedmont, Atlanta Metropolitan Region, Gulf Coast, Southern Appalachians, and Lowcountry. While the poets represented here write about historical tensions and local environments, their poems have resonance with audiences far from these particular settings.
OVERVIEW:
- In Step One, you will visit each of the links to the different poets featured below. Ultimately, you will choose TWO POETS to study. Try to choose two who will differ widely from one another: different styles or tones, from an urban and a rural experience, an activist and a sentimentalist, etc.
- Click on the picture or name link. This will take you to a webpage with the poets videos and poems. Watch the videos, listen to the poems, and click on the “text” link to see the poem they are reading.
- In Step Two, you will interact more fully with the poet's work by writing your response to and analysis of the items listed there.
STEP ONE: THE SOUTHERN POETS
DAN ALBERGOTTI reads five poems in and around his current home of Conway, South Carolina, in locations that include the Waccamaw River and nearby Pawley's Island. For Albergotti, the natural world allows explorations of beauty, love, serendipity, and death. His poems also examine the "emotional landscape of denial" that marked his childhood and youth.
SEAN HILL reads four poems from his debut collection, Blood Ties & Brown Liquor. The videos are set in locations around his hometown of Milledgeville, Georgia. Drawing upon oral history and close observation, Hill explores biography as well as racial history through several generations of a fictional African American family.
In these four short videos, southern Appalachian poet RON RASH reads three poems and an excerpt from his novel, Saints at the River. Drawing upon local knowledge and lore, memory, current events, and personal experience, Rash's writing explores his region's cultural and natural environment while raising questions about the everyday mysteries of existence. These readings were filmed at sites around Cullowhee, North Carolina.
Poet NATASHA TRETHEWEY presents her "Elegy for the Native Guards" on Ship Island, Mississippi and "Theories of Time and Space" on the Mississippi Gulf Coast with photographs representing her childhood and mixed-race heritage.
JAKE ADAM YORK reads four poems in and near his hometown of Gadsden, Alabama. York's poetry blends themes and imagery drawn from his experiences and those of his family members, framed with the natural, industrial, and social histories of the northern Alabama landscape.
STEP TWO: ANALYSIS
1) For your first poet, write the poet’s name and the southern region the poet is representing.
2) Record 5 differing descriptions from the TEXT of the poems that captures the landscape and terrain of the southern region. (Cutting and pasting phrases or lines from the poem text is allowed.)
3) Write down three of the most eye-catching things you see in the VIDEO CLIPS you've watched. Be sure to notice symbolic visuals or important camera shots that capture the feel or mood of this unique place.
4) Record five differing descriptions from that poet's SERIES OF POEMS that captures the emotional experience of living in that area.
5) Write down three of YOUR OWN IDEAS that explain how these poems are meaningful to people who do not live or have not grown up in this area. In other words, three ideas that explain how the poem is useful or important to the rest of the world.
6) Follow steps (1) through (5) again for a second poet.
2) Record 5 differing descriptions from the TEXT of the poems that captures the landscape and terrain of the southern region. (Cutting and pasting phrases or lines from the poem text is allowed.)
3) Write down three of the most eye-catching things you see in the VIDEO CLIPS you've watched. Be sure to notice symbolic visuals or important camera shots that capture the feel or mood of this unique place.
4) Record five differing descriptions from that poet's SERIES OF POEMS that captures the emotional experience of living in that area.
5) Write down three of YOUR OWN IDEAS that explain how these poems are meaningful to people who do not live or have not grown up in this area. In other words, three ideas that explain how the poem is useful or important to the rest of the world.
6) Follow steps (1) through (5) again for a second poet.
Photo and Content Resources:
Peaches: http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/usa/images-2/georgia-peaches.jpg
Appalachian Homestead: www.galenfrysinger.com/farm_appalachia.htm
The Introduction as well as the image and brief description for each poet is taken from the Southern
Spaces page: http://www.southernspaces.org/browse/poets-in-place
Native Guards: http://www.frenchcreoles.com/CivilWarSoldiers.jpg
Appalachian Homestead: www.galenfrysinger.com/farm_appalachia.htm
The Introduction as well as the image and brief description for each poet is taken from the Southern
Spaces page: http://www.southernspaces.org/browse/poets-in-place
Native Guards: http://www.frenchcreoles.com/CivilWarSoldiers.jpg