English Professor Marc Hudson and four of his student poets will take part in Poetry Day at the Carnegie Museum this Saturday from 2 to 4:00 p.m. Admission is free and activities are planned throughout the day.
“Four young poets — Joshua Bolton, Will McDonough, Adam Current, and Liam Smith — and I will be doing a presentation on poetry,” said Professor Hudson. “We’ll be talking a bit about poetry and reading or performing some poems. We will then do some writing activities with the museum patrons who would like to try their hands at poetry.”
Kat Burkhart, who coordinates activities at the museum, said she hopes to build on the growing success of other Wabash-Carnegie partnerships like Brain Day and Pi Day.
For Poetry Day, Hudson and the students will take center stage, but there will be ample opportunities for audience participation.
Dr. Hudson has broken down poetry into its basic forms — poetry is music, poetry is paying attention to the moment, poetry is local.
Hudson and Bolton will perform poetry as music with Bolton singing a Hip Hop poem. In a section dubbed “Poetry is Nonsensical,” Current will read a poem by Shel Silverstein.
McDonough will discuss and read a narrative poem in support of the idea that poetry can be story. Smith will read two poems to showcase how poetry is paying attention to the moment.
All of the poets will read a few local poems, before they break up to work with museum patrons and audience members. “I'll do a little workshop on writing — on image and setting a scene in poetry via 'My Mother's Kitchen' exercise —with crayons first, then writing,” Hudson explained.
Meanwhile, the students will teach and workshop poems of their liking:
• Bolton will teach Hip Hop and invite people to write a bit in this vein.
• Smith will talk about the poem of the moment and drawing on the local to create a poem.
• McDonough will tell a story and invite folks to write a narrative poem.
• Current will invite folks to write a nonsense poem.
New creations will be read aloud, and all participants will be able to take part in two different workshops.
