Happy Poem in Your Pocket Day 2013 ! (And A Great Poetry Resource too!)

Today is Poem in Your Pocket Day, one of the events for National Poetry Month, a month-long celebration of poetry held in April each year by the Academy of American Poets.  On April 18--Poem in Your Pocket Day--people are urged to carry a piece of poetry in their pockets and to share it with other people during the day.  It is a fun activity to get poetry out of the hallowed halls of academia and into everyday life.

My selection for this year's pocket poem is Mark Doty's "A Display of Mackerel":

A Display of Mackerel 
They lie in parallel rows, 
on ice, head to tail, 
each a foot of luminosity 

barred with black bands, 
which divide the scales' 
radiant sections 

like seams of lead 
in a Tiffany window. 
Iridescent, watery 

prismatics: think abalone, 
the wildly rainbowed 
mirror of a soapbubble sphere, 

think sun on gasoline. 
Splendor, and splendor, 
and not a one in any way 

distinguished from the other 
--nothing about them 
of individuality. Instead 

they're all exact expressions 
of one soul, 
each a perfect fulfillment 

of heaven's template, 
mackerel essence. As if, 
after a lifetime arriving 

at this enameling, the jeweler's 
made uncountable examples, 
each as intricate 

in its oily fabulation 
as the one before. 
Suppose we could iridesce, 

like these, and lose ourselves 
entirely in the universe 
of shimmer--would you want 

to be yourself only, 
unduplicatable, doomed 
to be lost? They'd prefer, 
plainly, to be flashing participants, 
multitudinous. Even now 
they seem to be bolting 

forward, heedless of stasis. 
They don't care they're dead 
and nearly frozen, 

just as, presumably, 
they didn't care that they were living: 
all, all for all, 

the rainbowed school 
and its acres of brilliant classrooms, 
in which no verb is singular, 

or every one is. How happy they seem, 
even on ice, to be together, selfless, 
which is the price of gleaming. 

Copied from poets.org, the website of the Academy of American Poets

I chose this poem for several reasons.  First, last year we were involved in a year-long Oceans Coop that culminated in an unforgettable trip to study the coral reefs in the Virgin Islands.  So the nominal subject matter-fish--is close to my heart.  Secondly, several lines in there really reminded me of a wonderful art exhibit called "Carbon Load" that my son's very talented art teacher, Jenny Eggleston of Egg in Nest Art Studio, had at ArtSpace in 2011.

Mostly, however, I think I picked this poem because I read a wonderful essay by Doty on his thought process as he was composing this poem.  It is a wonderful explanation of how poetry can proceed from a simple, everyday image--like a row of fish on ice--to a grander statement on the nature of life, death, and everything in between.  Entitled "Souls on Ice," it is a great resource for students and teachers trying to better comprehend the magic and magnificence that is poetry.  I recommend you read it on the poets.org website.

And don't forget to share your favorite poem with other people today!

Art Exhibit and Poetry Reading: ForWord

The art studio where my son takes art classes, Egg in Nest Studio, always celebrates National Poetry Month with an art exhibition and live poetry reading/performance event that celebrates the intersection between words and arts.  The students write poems, create art pieces based on those poems, exhibit their art in the Halle Cultural Arts Center in downtown Apex, then read their poems to an audience, appearing onstage with professionals in various art forms who also discuss and display their talents.  It is always a creative and inspiring event, and brings greater depth and understanding to the students' art studies.

This year, my son had two pieces in the show.

I really liked both of the them, especially because they were a departure from his typical techniques and demonstrated some of the ways that his wonderful teacher, Miss Jenny, is encouraging him to grow and stretch as an artist.  On the other hand, they also contain elements of his inimitable style.

This was his first piece, which was based on the poem he wrote that was entitled, "The Saga of the Sproing-Boing," where he was experimenting with the sounds of invented vocabulary:

The second one had a two word poem written into the picture.  The poem is "Extinction Distinction"... or maybe "Distinction Extinction"--he never would tell me.

Of course, my photos don't do the artwork justice.  If you are in the vecinity of downtown Apex before the exhibit closes on May 5, go check them out in person at the Halle Cultural Arts Center (at the intersection of 10-10/Center Street and Salem Street).

Here is the artist showing the pictures to his father:

This past Sunday was the live event called ForWord.  There, each participating got to read his or her poem with comments and encouragement from Miss Jenny:

But the student readings were interspersed with live performances and commentary on the connection between words and other art forms by a local music group, Jack the Radio:

a local grafitti artist, Blake Burnette:

poet and NC State writing professor, Chris Tonell:

and dancer Marie Garlock:

All in all, it's quite a big event, which Miss Jenny and her hard-working assistant, Miss Amanda, put on AT NO CHARGE for the benefit of the students--just one of the perks of taking class at  Egg in Nest Studio:

Of course, the greatest perk of taking classes there is that each week the kids get to work with Miss Jenny, who is not only a wonderful and creative artist in her own right, but an intuitive and inspiring teacher who loves all her students--just like they love her (although some demonstrate it more than others):

What more could you want from the person teaching your children?

An Exhibit You Don't Want to Miss

My son's art teacher, Jenny Eggleston of Egg in Nest Studio,  had not one, but two, art exhibit openings in downtown Raleigh last week, and we were able to go to both.  Both were really interesting and valuable in their own ways, and both exhibits are definitely worth going to see.  But the latter one, which is on exhibit this month at ArtSpace, was such a unique and powerful show that if you are in the area, you owe it to yourself to go.

The first exhibit, which is part of the Earthly Musings show (five artists "reflecting on shifting emotions and perceptions of the natural world") at the Block Gallery in the Municipal Building on West Hargett Street in Raleigh, combines Jenny's highly detailed, yet surrealistic drawings with her evocative poetry:

But as much as I liked those (which are displayed with magnifying glasses so that you can appreciate the fine details of her drawing), I was totally blown away by her exhibit the following night at ArtSpace (by Moore Square, for you Triangle residents).

In this exhibit, which is entitled Carbon Load, Jenny was responding as an artist to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  However, (all the following is just my interpretation, so keep that in mind) she is not about blaming BP for its failure.  Rather, her art asks us to face the fact that it is our dependence, if not addiction, to oil that creates the situations where environmental disasters like the Exxon Valdez or the BP Gulf Coast oil spills occur.  So while we can hold these companies to task for their failures, we need to look at ourselves for the ways that our excessive use of oil and gas drive the oil production business.

However, what is so brilliant about this exhibit is that Jenny doesn't lecture us or nag us--she leads by example.  Or, that is, she creates an environment where we can be vulnerable about our contributions to the global environmental problem by going first--by being vulnerable herself.  The way she does that is that she took her beautiful graphite (i.e., carbon) drawings of sea creatures (which took who knows how many hours to draw), and handed them over to another artist named Matthew Stromberg and allowed him to alter her artwork using fossil fuels.  So Stromberg took these beautiful works, and soaked them in rocket fuel, or burned them, or covered them in carbon or tar, or hitched them to a submersible to be soaked in the ocean depths.

The show is the results of the collaboration between the two.  In some of the pieces, you can barely see Jenny's original drawings.  In others, Matthew's alterations mirror Jenny's original piece in beautiful and thought-provoking ways:

This is one of the most interesting and evocative art exhibits I've seen since I've been in Raleigh.  So I know I recommend a lot of things, but I really recommend that those of you who are in the area come down and see this show, which will only be on display at ArtSpace until August 27.

This raised a lot of questions for us, not only about our relationship to these environmental issues and our shared responsibility for ecological problems, but also about what is the purpose of art (one of the students in our group said this exhibit made him sad, and we talked about whether art is always supposed to uplift us or make us happy, or what value it can have when it makes us wake up to things we might otherwise miss or deny).  

I will also say that, personally, it makes me really glad to have such an artist as a teacher for my son.   While I have him do lots of art classes, and I think they are all valuable, I really appreciate the ability for him to learn from such a cutting edge artist who continues to grow and learn and experiment and risk with her own art.  That is own of my own rules as a teacher--if I want them to stretch or question or work, I have to do so first.  But Miss Jenny definitely does all of that--and more!

Art and Poetry Camp

While I've mentioned previously that my son is taking a Calder camp this week at the gorgeous new Cary Arts Center, I also have to report on the fabulous Art and Poetry Camp he did last with his weekly art teacher during the school year, Miss Jenny of Egg in Nest Art Studio.  Like everything he does with Miss Jenny, the camp was multimedia, multidisciplinary, creatively inspirational, individualized, a little offbeat, and really high quality instruction:

They started with bookmaking, taught by one of Miss Jenny's former students who has studied bookmaking at Penland School of Arts.  They ended up making a 60-page coptic stitch book out of luscious paper that they decorated themselves with black ink:

Then they studied poetry, and wrote and illustrated their own poems, which they included or inserted among the pages.  This sample of Madison's poems really captures Ogden Nash's poetic style, I think:

MANATEE

I'm partial to the Manatee
Of which it has no enemy
Full of lovely proximity

Or sometimes they would just do art:

Or found word poetry:

Or just react to the patterns created by the ink decoration:

I can't do justice to this piece with my photographs, because it is so lovely to hold and to page through, discovering one little quirky gem after another.  But he had a great experience and ended up with a really wonderful art book, and I am very grateful to Miss Jenny for running the camp even though it has a small enrollment.

Madison showed his appreciation to his teacher by immortalizing her through his inimitable portrait style:

Happy Birthday Martin Gardner

Tonight I went to a different type of party--it was a celebration of the life of American mathematician Martin Gardner, who died earlier this year at the age of 95.  Martin Gardner is considered to be the father of recreational math, because he focused on exposing people to fun mathematics through games, puzzles, toys, and such.  He wrote math columns in popular magazines, such as Jack and Jill and Scientific America, that first brought broad exposure to such math topics as fractals, tangrams, M. C. Escher, and other math-related games and puzzles.

The evening was called "Gathering for Gardner:  Celebration of Mind," and there were over 60 parties of this type taking place around the world on this date.  All the parties had a common theme:  to honor the life's work of this extraordinary man by having people come together to play with math.

Our particular gathering was focused on the intersection of math and art.  It was organized and run by two women who are very important to our family:  Maria Droujkova of Natural Math, who is a great friend and works with my son to find his passion for mathematics, and Jenny Eggleston of Egg in Nest studio,  who is a wonderful artist and an intuitive and effective art coach/teacher for my son.  Both women have a great talent for understanding each student with his or her unique talents and challenges, and individualizing their instruction to provide each one with just the assistance s/he needs.   So spending an evening with them, and some other friends who are homeschooling parents and teen, is going to be valuable, regardless of what we do.  

We began by making 3-D sculptures out of drinking straws and/or pipe cleaners.  Then we admired some fantastic origami, art, and artistic videos related to numbers in nature.   But the bulk of the evening was spent playing "The Glass Bead Game," which was inspired by Herman Hesse's book of the same name.  We covered a long table with a roll of white paper and drew around small plates to form our first set of glass beads.  We were given a question to answer visually, and we drew our answers inside our own beads.  Then we found someone else's bead that inspired us, drew a new bead close to it, and drew a picture that "rhymed" visually with the first bead (as well as drawing a line of connection between the two).  We did this for a couple of rounds, and soon the paper was filled with all sorts of visualizations related to math, life, death, the universe, and Jackie Chan (that last one was my fault...I kind of got off track a bit).

Anyway, it was a fun and thought-provoking night and a great way to recognize a great mathematician.