Creative Writing Lecture at the University of St. Francis

Photo by Beth McDermott, the University of St. Francis in Joliet Zoom

I was invited to an introduction to creative writing lecture at the University of St. Francis in Joliet, IL by ​Beth McDermott. She also talked about her creative writing and visual poetry materials in this interview. 

Due to Covid-19, I joined her zoom lecture with half of her students from their homes and the other half from the classroom. Despite the long distance, her students explored the concepts of graphic poems. We did a three-minute graphic poetry exercise with pens & pencils (black & white art). Their first drafts were stunning! After the exercise, we also had a short presentation of their graphic poems.

The most fun and important part of creating graphic poems is deciding how to chose words and images from the original poem. Fundamentally, there are three choices:

1. Decide which words become images or remain words.
2. Use all written parts of the poem and add art.
3. Select the most vivid/heated phrase(s) and add art.​

More details of How we can create a graphic poem

I used Louise Glück's "All Hallows" for this exercise because:

• Louise Glück won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature. It is a good opportunity to introduce her works to students in the introduction poetry/creative writing class.
• "All Hallows" contains visually triggering words & lines (easy to approach drawing graphic elements), and this poem also contains a range of emotions.

Exercise:

1. Professor McDermott read Louise Glück's poem. The students only listened to it.
2. When Professor McDermott read the poem for the second time, the students circled their favorite images, words, & phrases on the poem while thinking of the three approaches I listed above.
3. The the students create a first draft of their graphic poem in a 3-minute window.​

All Hallows
by Louise Glück
​
Even now this landscape is assembling.
The hills darken. The oxen
sleep in their blue yoke,
the fields having been
picked clean, the sheaves
bound evenly and piled at the roadside
among cinquefoil, as the toothed moon rises:

This is the barrenness
of harvest or pestilence.
And the wife leaning out the window
with her hand extended, as in payment,
and the seeds
distinct, gold, calling
Come here
Come here, little one

And the soul creeps out of the tree.

Each student selected different parts of Louise Glück's poem. Examples of the students' favorite lines are:

• This is the barrenness
• And the wife leaning out the window with her hand extended, as in payment,
• The oxen sleep in their blue yoke,
• The hills darken.
• the soul creeps out of the tree.
• the seeds distinct, gold,

With these lines, they worked on creating their versions of graphic poems. They added visual elements - - some students drew styles similar to contemporary comics - - some explored Glück's meaning of "harvest" - - some connected and adapted their favorite movies or additional images into her poem.

The amount of creativity they managed to conjure within three minutes was stunning! In addition, there was a good question about adapting the original into a graphic poem. One student asked how the graphic poet adapts the true meanings of the original poem.

My answers were (so far):

• Ask and consult with the original poet if possible.
• If it is not possible, read, search, & familiarize yourself with the poet's work.

I think that I am going to ask my fellow visual/graphic poets about this question through my future blog articles.