blooms & burned bodies as lines of poetry in our january 2018 traveling poetry class.

in mid-ish late january, my traveling poetry class met at the new dunkin' donuts in phoenixville near rapps dam road, reading through and discussing the richly-filled writing of anne michaels, a canadian poet. her poems have a stirring resonance and warmth which all four of us welcomed on a sunday afternoon during the season of chilly months. i particularly loved my students' poems this round, shared in the later part of class. you can see some scenes of their throwings and line breaks in the second and fourth eye-scenes below. (the third photograph is a wordless poem, shh.)

traveling poetry classes in february 2018 at the other farm & forge & mario's pizza: focusing on memoir & amiri baraka poems.

february's traveling poetry classes will focus on memoir poems as their own approach and the works of amiri baraka who was recommended by one of my students. baraka died in 2014 and is from newark, new jersey.

any topics of creative writing are welcome for sharing and workshopping during class by those who attend, but we have inspirational topics as prompt ideas, too. please bring a few copies to share with other students, if you can, for anything you write and want to practice reading as well as discussing. but just having your original copy to read from is okay, if that's easier for the writer.

during the first class of the month, we'll meet at the other farm & forge (formerly called the other farm brewing company) in boyertown. the second class will be at our recent once-a-month hangout of mario's pizza in boyertown.

next classes–

when: sunday, february 4 @ 1 p.m. & sunday, february 18 at @1 p.m.

(IMPORTANT: the february 18 class is canceled due to weather; we'll focus on amiri baraka's poetry likely in march)

where: for february 4, the other farm & forge (formerly called the other farm brewing company) at 128 east philadelphia avenue, boyertown, pa 19512; for february 18, mario's pizza is at 159 south reading avenue, boyertown, pa 19512

 
optional themes of focus:

    sunday, february 4–memoir poems
    sunday, february 18–amiri baraka poems

cost: $20 per student, per class (we usually meet for 2 hours or more)

if we ever have oddly inconvenient weather around the time of classes, i will update those who RSVPed to classes in advance to let them know if we are canceling, rescheduling, or relocating.

if you have any questions, feel free to reach out via poetrywithjenniferhetrick at yahoo dot com.

and if you know anyone who may be interested in our class, feel free to share this blog content onward.

also, if there is anyone who may want to join our class but lives in another area across berks, chester, and montgomery counties, we sometimes travel to a good variety of different places, so let us know, and we can see about planning classes closer to you.

john foster reading martin luther king, jr.'s ''i have a dream speech'' in january 2018.

on the january 2018 episode of diversity: a wider vision hosted by dr. joseph amprey through bctv.org, john foster read dr. martin luther king, jr.'s "i have a dream speech" from august 28, 1963. foster is known for giving his own speeches around the region, and these memorized words in honor of today's celebration are laced with poetry and deeper significance which it seems we can't bring into conversation enough, even today. below is video footage, with foster's performance of dr. king's speech starting at 3 minutes and 40 seconds into the recording.

robert frost poems in january weather: a fitting pair.

in the cold of early january, my traveling poetry class met at mario's pizza again like in december but this time for reading through robert frost poems and ones of different kinds of topics from my students. fittingly, a good chunk of the robert frost poems which we went over were about snow-thinking sorts of weather.

and i also recently wrote a hoagie haiku inspired by this restauant, along with food-talks stemming from our class, for the visit boyertown PA site. lots of inter-weaving lines across it all, yes.

here are some eye-scenes from our latest class amid pizza, hoagies, hoagies, and burgers.

the fragmented yet lesson-worthy soup & salad of alice notley's poems.

in my mid-december traveling poetry class, we simmered through the sometimes broken apart and detached-seeming stanzas of alice notley. upon diving into notley's poems more, though, it's possible to find hints of the accessible in them, and piecing the feeling-response of those together as the reader, here and there, makes giving time and attention to her writings all the more worth it. plus, we all need a good challenge sometimes and can't expect everything to be simple and clear in front of us. we wouldn't be able to handle the rest of life suitably if that were the case. so it stretches our abilities better to jump into the not as comfortable, the less understood. and when we can relate to any hint of it then, it's a universal hug to our insides via the page.

ellen miller-mack of booklut.com convey's notley's talents reaching down into our bones and blood well in her review of culture of one which shares stories of a homeless woman in arizona. we read other poems by notley during class but also flipped through this book's language tossings.

 

in loud spaces, we tried to listen to a recording of notley 

reading a poem in a youtube video on a tablet. tried, we did.

traveling poetry classes in january 2018 at mario's pizza in boyertown & *the new* dunkin' donuts in phoenixville: focusing on robert frost & anne michaels' poems.

january's traveling poetry classes will focus on the works and styles of the famed robert frost and canadian scribe anne michaels. most know the name of frost (sharing his stanzas until he passed away in 1963), and part of one of his poems was used in a voiceover for a sports car commercial not long ago. i stumbled across the poetry of anne michaels after discovering it quoted in a book on CD i was listening to in 2014 called sweetwater creek by anne rivers siddons. and here is a welcome recording of a teenager who created a video by reading several of her poems and discussing them for the audience of the interwebs.

we'll practice reading their poems out loud and will discuss their styles, themes, curious phrasings, and anything else which stands out to us in their poetry. and testing out poems inspired by theirs to bring to class to share is welcome.

during the first class of the month, we'll meet at mario's pizza in boyertown, just like last month. the second class will be at the *new* dunkin' donuts in phoenixville (NOT the 218 nut road location where we met at on the 17th of december). dress plenty warmly in case it's chilly or drafty. ya just never know with temperature nuances.

next classes–

when: sunday, january 7 @ 1 p.m. & sunday, january 21 @ 1 p.m.

where: for january 7, mario's pizza is at 159 south reading avenue, boyertown, pa 19512; for january 21, dunkin' donuts is at 390 schuylkill road, phoenixville, pa 19460

optional themes of focus:

• sunday, january 7–robert frost-inspired poems
• sunday, january 21–anne michaels-inspired poems

cost: $20 per student, per class (we usually meet for 2 hours or more)

at either class, any other subject is always welcome for the sharing, including other variations of creative writing, too. we pick out the poetry in whatever we read and hear. bringing a few copies of your writings to share is helpful so everyone can read them or share. but just having your original copy to read from is okay, too.

if we ever have oddly inconvenient weather around the time of classes, i will update those who RSVPed to classes in advance to let them know if we are canceling, rescheduling, or relocating.

if you have any questions, feel free to reach out via poetrywithjenniferhetrick at yahoo dot com.

and if you know anyone who may be interested in our class, feel free to share this blog content onward.

also, if there is anyone who may want to join our class but lives in another area across berks, chester, and montgomery counties, we sometimes travel to a good variety of different places, so let us know, and we can see about planning classes closer to you.

richard blanco poems over a really big hoagie & pizza.

in early december, my traveling poetry class enjoyed a sunday afternoon at mario's pizza in boyertown. we went over richard blanco poems and ones inspired by his writings. to recap, blanco wrote and read the presidential inauguration poem for our country in 2013 and did so from a very unique background for getting up to share his words in front of the entire u.s. here is a link to this poetry performance.

and of course, there's eating involved as we nibble our way through poetry in voices more new to us.

a medium-sized hoagie spanning 3 paper plates. really, though.

 

a beautiful poem called "burning in the rain" by blanco.

 

and student poems begin here.

 

notice the light shining across particles of air.

 

santa ordering pizza with his grandson, perhaps.