Traveling Stanzas

From the latest addition of eInside:

The Wick Poetry Center and Glyphix, the student design studio of the School of Visual Communication and Design at Kent State University, recently collaborated on Traveling Stanzas, a project that combined the creative talents of Kent State students with area student writers to promote awareness of poetry and graphic design within the community.
Kent State students designed eight posters, each with a different student poem, which will be displayed in Akron METRO and PARTA buses throughout the summer.

Valora Renicker, the creative director of Glyphix and assistant professor in the School of Visual Communication and Design (VCD), says she initiated the project with the help of David Hassler, director of the Wick Poetry Center. Renciker says there has been a long history of poetry in public transportation; the Poetry Motion project was started in 1992 in New York City and Renicker even worked with Cleveland RTA in the past on a similar project.

“We were looking for a way for the students in Glyphix, to continue doing projects like this and get some local exposure,” Renicker says. “By doing this in Akron and Kent, we’re getting a lot more feedback from people who’ve seen them on the buses and around town.”
When Renicker contacted Hassler to supply the poems, he immediately thought to use poetry written by kids in the community.

“I took quite a bit of time selecting different poems that I thought would resonate with each other,” Hassler says. “I recommended to some of the students that the longer poems be shortened and so some of them are excerpted versions.”

The poems were generated through workshops conducted by the Wick Poetry outreach program that is conducted by Kent State students enrolled in the class, Teaching Poetry in Schools.
After the poems were selected the designs came together quickly so they could be put on display at the Wick Poetry Center annual poetry reading, Giving Voice.

“We rushed to finish the traveling stanzas in time to display them in the Kent State University Ballroom, so when people walked into Giving Voice, they could see the designs on display as they walked in,” Hassler says.

Renicker says even though the students had a shorter time to design, they did a great job. Her favorite part of the project was the creative freedom and flexibility of the design students to express their feelings and thoughts about the poems.

“They’re talented students so they can get it done quickly and sometimes that spontaneous work produces the most expressive visual solutions,” Renicker says.

Hassler says the designs, both the language of the poem and visual design are on equal footing and so the greatest thing about the traveling stanzas to him, is how with little effort, good things can come out of a collaboration between the university and the community.
Some of the Kent State designers would agree that the best part of the project was working with the students in the community.

Jason Bacher, senior visual communication and design major, designed a poster around a poem written by two brothers, titled “My Soul.”

“My favorite part of this project was that I had the opportunity to work with the young people in the community and I had the chance to bring to life, one of their poems,” Bacher says. “I could tell they were both proud of their accomplishment.”

Khou Vue, senior visual communication and design major, was inspired by a poem written by a seventh grader, titled “My Grandma.”

“The poem was very beautifully written with really wonderful descriptions, so I had a lot to work with,” Vue says. “Everyone involved with the traveling stanzas were so dedicated to educating and getting the arts out there for people to see; it is very uplifting.”

Both Renicker and Hassler are pleased with how the traveling stanzas project came together and they hope to work together in the future. In addition to the bus placards, they plan to print future projects in other formats, including window posters and greeting cards.

“We’re interested in creating a series of traveling stanzas for this coming academic year around themes of peace in conjunction with the 40th commemoration of May 4,” Hassler says. “We want to have these traveling stanzas at businesses in downtown Kent and Ravenna, so when people return, they’ll see these voices of school kids touching on themes of peace all over town.”

For more information on the Wick Poetry Center visit their Web site.

More information about Glyphix and the School of Visual Communication and Design can be found online.

By Mary Jo Spletzer

"Why I Write Poems"

Take a minute and read Djelloul Marbrook's recent blog post, "Why I write poems."

Preview: Here are the last paragraphs.

This story of our friendship aborning, John’s and mine, is also very much David’s story, and the story of the Stan and Tom Wick Prize at Kent State, which is committed to nurturing new voices, and to Kent State, the nurturer of the Wick Poetry Center, and, finally, to the AWP which helps writers find their voices and their audiences.—DM

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Note:The CD of Far From Algiers is now available from Bookmasters, Kent State University Press and by order from your local bookstore. I try to say something illuminating before each poem. The music was composed by Julie Last and recorded by her at Coldbrook Productions Recording Studio, Woodstock, NY. The soprano saxophone is played by Bruce Williamson. All proceeds from the sale of the CD go to the Wick Poetry Center.

Ohio Arts Council: "Encouraging New Voices"

The Ohio Arts Council features the Wick Poetry Center Outreach Program in a featured article on its Web site, "Encouraging New Voices." (Note: From this link go to County - Portage.)

Here's the first part of the article:

"JJ is an African-American vocal arts student at Miller South School. He is a quiet, reserved young man of few words. Last year he seldom sang out in vocal class and never did duet or solo work, but then he connected with the visiting musical artist..."

Wick Poetry Featured On Around Noon

Wick Poetry was featured on the April 22 broadcast of the popular radio program, Around Noon.

Here's a link to the broadcast hosted by Dee Perry on WCPN in Cleveland.

Chris Wick: His Talk About Wick Poetry

Chris Wick gave a thoughtful -- and very personal -- talk during the dinner Friday night (April 24) that celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Wick Poetry Center.

We wanted to share his remarks with you.

Hello, it’s very good to be here.

First I’d like to thank everyone involved here in Kent and the surrounding areas who contribute to the Wick Poetry Center and the outreach program, the students, their instructors and other faculty, and it bears repeating this especially includes Maggie Anderson and David Hassler and their office. It has been a joy to know them and not only be invited to participate but hustled into writing poetry just like everyone else.

I struggled with what to say on this momentous occasion. And for anyone who knows me, being who I am, I wanted to talk about myself. So I will start with that and move on to what I believe this program is really about.

When I was a kid, I used to turn down the sound and the picture on the television as if it were off and leave it to the next person to figure out. I imagined my dad, who has very little technical ability, cursing, wondering what was wrong with the “damn thing.” It was a social experiment I suppose and a mischievous way of expressing myself.

But today what the image represents to me is a metaphor for what so many of us chose to do to ourselves because we fear being heard and seen for who we are. We turn down the sound and the picture as a way of coping with everyday life, perhaps to avoid confrontation, to temper our wild enthusiasm, to control our fear of the unknown and certainly to avoid feelings of loss and grief.

I believe this was the case for myself, I lost my brother and my cousin and in a strange way I didn’t know that I wouldn’t die as well somewhere in the same sea of my teenage years. But when I was sixteen I started to turn up the sound, so to speak.

In a poetry class in Northern Michigan, far from my home, I wrote something that my teacher said was very good. In fact what he said was, “Up until now, Chris, I didn’t think you were ever going to write a good poem, but this one,” and he closed his fist in his typical expression of grit and power, “this one is really something.”

It was about Interstate 10, a flat, barren stretch of asphalt across the Arizona desert. It proves what my Uncle Bob has said to me, "Chris, if you don't write it no one else ever will." It was a cornerstone to my identity at the time and allowed me to distance myself from the illusion of my own demise. Poetry saved my life.

Poetry is in the words of the woman who gathers her family to her death bed to speak one last time, it is the defiant language of a child who speaks truth to power, and every line we’ve ever struggled over to let our voice be known. It’s critical to our society that poetry have it’s place so those who choose to can claim their identity through it and Kent has proven to be an undeniable foothold in our journey forward.

The Wick Poetry Program has been a 25 year investment and we can attribute the great returns, not to the money invested, but to the willingness and courage of those who write and listen to, read and teach poetry here in Kent and the surrounding areas.
All of the people who choose to invest in the expression of their own identities and listen to the words that laid open the identities of others - the one thing beyond food, shelter and clothing that I believe empowers us to make progress in whatever else we do.

One of the most profound examples, for me, occurred last spring. A guidance counselor who worked at the Maplewood Career Center , Lori Bryte, who had attended each of the Giving Voice performances of the outreach program became ill suddenly the semester before and died shortly afterward.

Despite the heartache of loss that I witnessed in the faces of the students and other teachers, there was a drive to claim the experience as their own. They would not ignore or turn down the sound of their sorrow. They called out to the teacher, wrote poems addressed to her, stood up on stage and cried to claim their ownership of grief. It was sublime.

Standing here for Stan and Tom, I am honored by the endeavors of those who write their own poetry here in this corner of Ohio. To any of you who couldn’t help but write a poem because David walked into your classroom and dragged it out of you, to any one who wandered into a reading and was caught by the cool bearing of Maggie’s introduction of a poet, to any of you here today – thank you.

I am honored to be in your presence and speaking for my family on this occasion celebrating 25 years of the Wick Poetry Program, we are grateful for the opportunity to be of service. Thank you.

Photos Highlight Wick Anniversary Celebration

Here's a link to a slide show that highlights the year-long celebration of the Wick Poetry Center's 25th anniversary.

A warm thank you to Gary Harwood for the photos and for his enthusiastic support of Wick poetry through the years.

The slide show is featured in this week's e-Inside, Kent State's online newsletter for faculty and staff.

The Writing Lives Story Project: Maggie Anderson

As we continue to celebrate the Wick Poetry Center’s 25th anniversary, we have created an interactive space on our website to provide an opportunity for authors and readers everywhere to share stories of their accomplishments and their involvement with our programs over the years.

And as part of our anniversary celebration during April, we'll post some excerpts here from The Writing Lives Story Project. Today we feature Maggie Anderson.

A quarter of a century is a long time for any program to maintain a vibrant, thriving life. And, for myself, 17 years is a long time to be responsible for such a program. I suppose the thing is, that this is more than a “program” to me. It is a calling that I have answered eagerly because I love the work it has given me to do. To provide young poets with scholarships (the first money they ever earn for their poetry), graduate and undergraduate assistantships, book publications, readings, and opportunities to teach younger poets in the schools is -- or is for me – a remarkable gift to have been given. To see those young poets grow and go on to publish books, obtain teaching jobs or arts management jobs, or editing jobs, and to become members of the small but devoted literary community of poets is a great joy. The Wick Poetry Program – now, a Center since 2004, under the College of Arts and Sciences – has given me that joy.

I have been a poet since I was in the second grade and a poet came to my school (much like David Hassler and his outreach students go to schools now). We went outside the school – in itself, a rare occasion in the middle of the day – and were instructed to look closely at everything we could see, hear, smell, taste, feel and then write a poem about that. I became engaged with a particular tree branch, and it, and my own imagined cleverness, created a poem that compared the bark of a tree to the bark of a dog. The poet admired my poem, and I swore that day that I would be a poet and teach others how to make poems forever.

The Wick Poetry Center, established in 1984 in memory of Stan and Tom Wick, has given me the chance to fulfill that promise to myself. I honor the memory of these two young men who left this world before their own great potential could be fulfilled, and I am forever grateful to the Robert and Walter Wick families for making possible the realization of the dreams and hopes of so many young poets, including my younger poet self who came to Kent State wondering what I might offer here and what a “Wick Program” might be.

Here's Maggie's complete story.

Whether you are a first book or chapbook author, former intern or fellow, outreach student, parent, or teacher, we want to hear from you and to know how the Wick Poetry Center has impacted your life and work in your own community.

Please take a few minutes to tell your story by sharing your experiences, thoughts and perspective about the Wick Poetry. And please visit the Wick Web site to read the many posts we have already received.

And here's an overview and complete list of our 25th anniversary culminating events.