COURSES > WINTER TERM 2021 > Writing and Practice: Art-ing Across Genres > SESSION 04

F455i SESSION 04

March 22, 2021 (LIVE CLASS SESSION)
The List Poem(s)

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https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87582787841?pwd=RnFpdTJFTjh5Qll0dXNEbU04aCtmUT09
Meeting ID: 875 8278 7841
Passcode: ELL-write1

There are numerous ways to list and archive! We will write three kinds of list poems which entail archiving. We have already tapped into our memories and written letters as a way to recall, reaffirm and peel layers. What separates a regular list from a list poem? LANGUAGE and BREVITY. For example, here is a “regular” grocery list below:
Butter
Eggs
Milk
Bread

A List Poem takes those words and gives them story or context line by line. For example:

1. Butter that we imagine as cold because mother says we are ladies who do not slip and slide
2. Eggs that we are to pray stay safe from being touched as if we belong in a nest so far from dropping our faces never crack
3. Milk as a way of keeping us tended to (who wants the cow if they can have the milk)
4. Bread for all the money our mother desires our husbands to one day make

(L.1.) Create a List Poem using the alphabet. A list of 26 things you have learned in the last 5 years, 10 years, 20 years or 1 year. Create this list in alphabetical order. Here’s an example in this format below:
A. Acceptance (Information about this. About 2 lines)
B. Binge watching television (Information about this. About 2 lines)
C. Crying with a mask on (Information about this. About 2 lines.
(L.2.) Create a List Poem which appears and takes the form of a recipe. A recipe for peace, love, joy, artistic appreciation, magic…anything BUT food.
(L.3.) Create a List Poem of things you believe are “beautiful.”

Warm up Prompt:
Discussed in Class

Writing Prompt:
Write a List Poem

*Due to group (Online Studio 3/26)
*Feedback from group members(Online Studio due 3/28)

Weekly Homework:

Journal Entry #4
Discussed in Class

Sketch Entry #4
Discussed in Class
*Ongoing journal assignment weekly “obsession.”

SESSION VIDEO /

EXAMPLE OF A LIST POEM
You Are Who I Love by Aracelis Girmay
VIDEO / WRITTEN

Discussion

Tracy Holtham: dear lower back muscles. off loading some important contemporary artifact. - I...
Tracy Holtham: Apologies for the late feedback. life in-between A is for alcohol. -...
Tracy Holtham: I really like the scale of the artwork at the start, which...

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Artist

Kadie Kelly

23 March 2021 3:18pm

Music is part of my process. I was feeling stuck and sitting down to improvise loosened me up last night. Today I’m listening to it while writing. I called it meandering thoughts and missing pieces.

...ces.KadieKelly 3:23:21, 12.14 PM 1.m4a

Artist

carli toliver

24 March 2021 7:15pm

Reply to Kadie Kelly

I really enjoyed this! 🙂 thank you for sharing.

Artist

Kadie Kelly

25 March 2021 11:09pm

Reply to carli toliver

thanks carli!

Artist

Jeannine Bardo

27 March 2021 2:06pm

Reply to Kadie Kelly

That was lovely Kadie and I listened to it while I read your list poem

Prof

Anastacia-Renee

30 March 2021 2:22am

Reply to Kadie Kelly

I like this! Interlude meets make a next chess move meets nostalgia meets search for puzzle pieces under partial cloudy day,. 🙂

Artist

Tracy Holtham

5 April 2021 4:57pm

Reply to Kadie Kelly

I really like your musical piece – I have been thinking about ways to set the scene before writing. Thank you for the reminder that music can be part of a preparatory repertoire and the experience of poetry.

Artist

Kadie Kelly

26 March 2021 2:25pm

Here is my list poem. I can’t wait to see everyone’s. 🙂

A is for abandoned.pdf

Artist

Jeannine Bardo

27 March 2021 2:42pm

Reply to Kadie Kelly

Hi Kadie,

I love how pink is such an important player in your list poem. You had me looking up the definition of pink and it is so much bigger and deeper than I ever gave it credit for. It is also a visually beautiful text. Light in the beginning even though the title is heavy, a colorful treat as you scroll down and see the image, the lovely shape, sounds and imagery of cynosure (a new word for me!) and a clean presentation of the list. It was also really nice to finish with bell hooks’ quote

-The sway of my skirt determines the weather around here
-Knowing something bigger and better can happen if I don’t apply a choke hold.

Artist

carli toliver

28 March 2021 11:18am

Reply to Kadie Kelly

I also really enjoyed the use of Pink that appears in this poem. In this poem I associated pink with girlhood, gentle, soft, wild, power. The poem seemed to me like a map of survival, or a balm for protection, healing, helping – finding a way. I really liked “The sway of my skirt” – with Bellows – that seemed like a lovely way to illustrate bellowing. I also really liked “Consider the side effects of the protection you seek.” As a caution but also just as another thread of thought to hold in my head while I kept reading.

Prof

j o h n r o s

28 March 2021 6:30pm

Reply to Kadie Kelly

this presentation is considered and really interesting… i love taking the .pdf to new places… thinking about publications or something more complete. the visual and instructional qualities resonate.

these especially stayed with me:
Meander
I only know how to meander. Pink meanders. Isn’t pressed.

Remember 1.: awake 2.: record

Twilight 1.: half light

Zero (all of zero)

it maybe feel arbitrary, but i am a very spacial person… and i found it difficult to follow some of the flow due to the spacing and punctuation inconsistencies. i may be the only one to notice this… but tightening up might improve the flow textually and visually.

Last edited 3 years ago by j o h n r o s

Prof

Anastacia-Renee

30 March 2021 2:50am

Reply to Kadie Kelly

Kadie, check your email for my feedback!
Prof. A.

Artist

Tracy Holtham

5 April 2021 5:00pm

Reply to Kadie Kelly

I really like the scale of the artwork at the start, which makes me want to look at the piece in further detail.

The format of the first stanza followed by the table is really intriguing to me.

I read the table horizontally at first, then looked at the alphabetical list downwards (in a similar way in which I viewed the first stanza). For me, there is poetry within poetry, and also a sense of mystery, which is really powerful.

I particularly like the following lines:

In excelsis pink.
– I like the juxtaposition of this.

What do you want to know? Everything I need to know is revealed to me at the right time and in the right sequence.
– This is something I aim to remember myself, when things don’t make sense to me.

Curiosity uncovers mysteries otherwise hidden. We can honor questions by asking them, by thanking them for coming to use, to point us in the direction of our next step.
– I like the personification of the question. Honoring questions by giving them breath and life feels fundamentally important.

I also like the use of the Bell Hooks quote – for me it provided comfort.

Prof

j o h n r o s

26 March 2021 4:35pm

this list poem is going to need MUCH more work… i see it as a very first draft :/
also… my (slightly reworked) poem from class.
there is more to do, but i have been on holiday this week and am trying to disconnect as much as possible.

...ing journal in class epistolary poem.pdf

Writing journal list poem.pdf

Artist

Kadie Kelly

26 March 2021 9:02pm

Reply to j o h n r o s

Hi John,

I like how at almost the mid point this line appears: disconnect between who i was and who i wanted to be, reinforcing the title.

I picked out my favorite parts/lines, below.
The bold means extra favorite

This got me:
n is for nascent. as in memories and dreams anew. like patterned dew drops falling amid smells of green and hope.

I love the combination of sensory detail and emotion here. Feels very fresh to me.

another favorite part:
o is for omniscient. like the mourner. the forever sound of loss. a single note hovering like fogs immortal soul stretches over cascading soundscapes of hum. slow ticking pulse through vein reveals more than existence. life looms long like little earthquakes of sand and stone.

This part practically gave me stendahl syndrome:

p is for painter. the artist i had always wanted to be. songs like saar’s. strokes like krasner’s. soaks like frankenthaler’s. grids like martin’s. colors like thomas’. woman epitomized heart beat, lost in the masculine world of drips and color field.

This was super cool. I loved it:

v is for vexillologist. early interests to find who i was by where i was from. only, my ancestors would not be defined by some banner of power — elitist symbol of conquer or ownership. though i still love the possibility, not unlike the catholic ritual, i despise the hate and anguish that associates themselves with these symbols of today.

I loved this in the context of everything else here. Minimal words that reinforce the title of the poem. After reading the complex tension and pain in the poem this letter feels like an act of self love and an affirmation making it all the more powerful:

w is for witness.

Artist

Jeannine Bardo

27 March 2021 3:08pm

Reply to j o h n r o s

There were so many great lines in here John. I went through a whirlwind of emotions while reading this and my heart broke and took in more of you than it already possessed because it was so raw and honest.

I really liked K and N and how the words listed didn’t seem to fit into something personal, but they embodied something more subconscious and dreamlike, something more deeply personal, the artist

k is for kindling. as in faggot. as in the jeers from others sounding like early morning alarms awaking from dreamlike sleep, sweet simmering embers of sleepy eyes wandering over shadows and shapes and forms on the wall. i remember this place. like the witches that came before me, burning alive atop the dry, crackling twigs.

n is for nascent. as in memories and dreams anew. like patterned dew drops falling amid smells of green and hope. January’s snow melting into mud season and arms moving freely making a new season.

And then the simplicity of w is for witness above y is for yield amid the stories of witnessing and yielding throughout is perfect.

Last edited 3 years ago by Jeannine Bardo

Artist

carli toliver

28 March 2021 11:27am

Reply to j o h n r o s

Wow, John, there is so much here. I started copying lines I liked but there are too many. I almost feel like you have a poem in each letter. I really enjoyed the repetition of letters starting words, or repetition of sounds, in so many of these passages. Reading this felt powerful, like there was so much, so much energy flowing through.

Artist

Tracy Holtham

19 April 2021 5:21pm

Reply to j o h n r o s

Apologies for the late feedback.

life in-between

A is for alcohol.
– I can relate to this stanza and sense of tension.

my always friend
– This line says a lot. It made me think about the meaning of the word friend, how it can have different definitions within itself, or can change depending on experience or context.

life of the party long ago to hibernating dreams echoed in empty rooms.
– I like how the sense of time and space occupy and travel through this line.

e is for erasure.
square peg surrounds endless noise
– This line really spoke to me.

i is for in-between
this in-between my shelter from nothing and everything.
– This line really stood out to me, and made me think about the space around shelters, or when a shelter can be seen within reach, and the potential feelings that could be experienced, depending on the viewpoint.

t is for truth.
– This made me pause and re-evaluate its meaning. Truth is something I’ve spent a lifetime searching for, however sometimes it can also be something that just is.

w is for witness.
– For me so much is said within the succinctness of this line.

Artist

Tracy Holtham

19 April 2021 5:45pm

Reply to j o h n r o s

dear lower back muscles.

off loading some important contemporary artifact.
– I like the combination of importance and ambiguity in this line.

i am reminded of your stubbornness – revealing yourself at a moments notice –
– I can relate to this.

i’ll see you tomorrow.
– This reminded me how life can be an embodied experience, with a sense of separateness sometimes.

Artist

Jeannine Bardo

27 March 2021 11:34am

List poem of what I learned in the last decade.
The Fifth Decade: A List

List poem.docx

Artist

Kadie Kelly

27 March 2021 11:40pm

Reply to Jeannine Bardo

Hi Jeannine, So many favorite lines in here. My favorites very favorite was J, and then the rest of my favorites are R, V, Y. I also love ocean swimming, so O too. 🙂

Artist

Kadie Kelly

28 March 2021 1:18pm

Reply to Kadie Kelly

I haven’t known how to put into words too, that your poem felt meaningful to me. It felt like you were being very honest. I felt honored to read it.

Artist

carli toliver

28 March 2021 11:38am

Reply to Jeannine Bardo

I loved the truth telling in this poem! To me there was hope but also heartbreak and the melancholy bits of life too. I liked the way you chose to use the list poem, to be concise and clear. For me each line had more impact because of that. Some lines I especially like are:

Years behind me now become seconds or decades or dreams, all folded like a map that you can never get back into place
Reciprocity brings me to tears when I swim in the sea, when I talk to the trees, when I have the people I love physically near me

Prof

j o h n r o s

28 March 2021 6:47pm

Reply to Jeannine Bardo

these really resonated with me:

How feeling young at fifty is no big accomplishment

Mother Ocean allows me to stay longer in her chilly cradle of peace and understanding where I’ve learned a lot about what I’ve always known

Quiet is lost to tinnitus and ear worms and helicopters and drag racing and sirens and a world that is spinning out of control

Spines compress sooner than expected

Truth has lost some standing, but not its power

Vaginas are magical, powerful and fickle

Years behind me now become seconds or decades or dreams, all folded like a map that you can never get back into place

i am intrigued how this lets us in… this becomes a portrait of lived experience. there is closeness here. i wonder if/how some of these could go deeper? draw us in further? or bring us closer to you?

Artist

carli toliver

27 March 2021 11:41am

List poem is attached. This one was tough and don’t love it. Also this week just felt like brain was not really working. So this poem feels more like a plageristic composition (!) from Etymology Online Dictionary. Probably not the most reliable source :/. So, a draft for sure.

List Poem Week .pdf

Artist

Jeannine Bardo

27 March 2021 3:37pm

Reply to carli toliver

Carli,
I liked the way you added so many pigments/ colors to white, a non-color, something not present in the spectrum, but omnipresent in our lives and how the list took me through time and place and a fraught history.

Artist

Kadie Kelly

28 March 2021 1:03pm

Reply to carli toliver

Hi Carli, I was riveted here by what you were going to do at each turn. The beginning, A for Albescent seems like a pretty word, but the subsequent lines connoting erasure are horrifying and set up the poem with that lens. The slurs, which I experience as taboo, are super powerful.

I is for Irreproachable. As in lily-white. As in apart, alone, unrivaled, peerless, isolated. As in whites-only.

O is for Ofay. As in African American word for white person. As in “Yoruba ofe ‘to disappear’ (as from a powerful enemy), with the sense transferred from the word of self-protection to the source of the threat.”

Prof

j o h n r o s

29 March 2021 5:57am

Reply to carli toliver

this held me tight from the beginning. there is a tension through reading that feels thick. its security rings forthward in a way that is both unsettling and lasting. an echo maintained these words from some time — holding their importance in the air after reading. persistent.

all the stanzas feel rooted… but for some reason this one really resonated:
U is for Union. As in group. As in more perfect. As in we hold these truths.

Artist

Tracy Holtham

27 March 2021 8:52pm

Hi Everyone

Apologies for the late submission. Here is my first list poem.

...inite Anomalies T Holtham March 2021.pdf

Artist

carli toliver

28 March 2021 11:50am

Reply to Tracy Holtham

-Weekends are in a race with themselves – the best way around this is to get up early
-Decisions are infinite anomalies
-Lead times can be illusionary estimates which appease and offer breathing space
-One thing at once is a concept I find hard to stretch my mind around

These were just some of the lines I enjoyed. I really liked this reflection back on the past and could relate to much of what you write. I also enjoyed the bits that are very personal, or small observations: Rings accompany my hands on an intermittent basis. Similar to Jeannine’s poem this was another lovely and very concise way of noting the idiosyncratic and the specific. I also thought your first line: Actualisation is a life in progress, was sort of appropriate to the entire poem and was something I returned to when I read it through again – it sets up the poem beautifully.

Artist

Kadie Kelly

28 March 2021 1:16pm

Reply to Tracy Holtham

Hi Tracy,

You wove in concepts related to tracking time by using specific days of the week, months, and mentioning holidays which brought an analytic quality and sense of comfort to know what to expect when.

K gave me pause and seemed like something I wanted to know more about. It seemed central to understanding your interpretation of time and timing, what to expect when. And it was located almost in the middle of the list.

Kettles breaking force me to leave by the nearest exit in hunt of another instantly

Songs fuel the footnotes to my emotions. – Love this because I am a music lover
Velcro’s possesses an over-committed sticking power – I had a strong response to this – remembering velcro shoes in my childhood!
Xylophones are like pianos, but are more reflective – Oh my! I never thought of that! Love!

Artist

Jeannine Bardo

28 March 2021 5:17pm

Reply to Tracy Holtham

I really liked how you used the calendar-days-months-years throughout and the rhythm of the writing gave me a sense of a constant drum beat. They read like Jennie Holzer’s Truisms and I get the feeling the list can keep going and going.

I enjoyed reading JK and L together

January joy is an algebraic equation to be surmounted
Kettles breaking force me to leave by the nearest exit in hunt of another instantly
Lead times can be illusionary estimates which appease and offer breathing space

And there is a lot of busyness throughout until Q

Prof

j o h n r o s

29 March 2021 6:05am

Reply to Tracy Holtham

so many delicious nuggets here…

Caricatures are what I wear to be invisible
January joy is analgebraic equation to be surmounted
Lead times can be illusionary estimates which appease and offer breathing space
Mondays require a strategy
November is a bridge between October and the month I’ve reframed as an adult
One thing at once is a concept I find hard to stretch my mind around
Quietness is a daily requirement
Velcro’s possesses an over-committed sticking power
Yearly words rather than resolutions
Zones are my geographical breath in London

we are along for this journey… there is a pace that seems fitting to the content, sounds of lines and stanza feel complete and learned. hesitancy and fluency at once comingle on the page and pulse these years through text and passage.

Last edited 3 years ago by j o h n r o s

Artist

Tracy Holtham

27 March 2021 10:12pm

L2 – List Poem (Recipe Format)

...for Inspiration T Holtham March 2021.pdf

Prof

j o h n r o s

29 March 2021 6:11am

Reply to Tracy Holtham

oh goodness! this one reads really well. there is playfulness, yet direct pursuit toward goal searching/reaching. the third stanza really pops, while your instructional words (including times and measurements) make tangible this intangible pursuit.

Artist

Tracy Holtham

27 March 2021 10:21pm

Warm up Prompt:
Poem to a body part – 5 lines

...em Dear Knees T Holtham March 2021.pdf

Artist

Kadie Kelly

28 March 2021 1:23pm

Reply to Tracy Holtham

Hi Tracy,
i loved this recipe for inspiration. All of it was great. I think /read about the creative process a lot and your voice feels fresh. I like these lines the very best, but again, I really enjoyed all of it!

Stir all the consequences lightly As too much seriousness will delay the cooking time Add conversations to taste And let the exchange simmer into stimulus The required consistency will foster curiosity
Then pause to let thoughts and angles transpire Pour the heated elements into a lined tray of courage

The contents should be golden Elements will assist ideas to breath

Artist

Kadie Kelly

28 March 2021 1:26pm

Reply to Tracy Holtham

The idea of the knees having a voice and finally using it – I can see this relate to a lot of different things, because of this line:
We’d been running silently for years. – powerful!

I loved how literal and metaphoric this is at once.

Artist

Kadie Kelly

27 March 2021 11:32pm

Recipe for escaping depressing thoughts.
Video demonstration available upon request. 🙂

...ipe for escaping depressing thoughts.pdf

Artist

cary

28 March 2021 7:11pm

Hey Prof A. and all,
Sorry for such a delayed submission. It’s been a ridiculously stormy week here in Nashville resulting in stressful days, broken sleep at night and topped off by my studio floor getting flooded. ? ? Still, no major damage so I won’t complain. We got off very very lightly compared to others.

Attached is a draft of my list poem, which is a mix of English, Scots and Hiberno-English, and which I’ll likely be working on for months ‘til I’m happy with it. But I was determined to get every letter of the alphabet done and I decided to break some of the rules to get there.

I intended to do an actual collage for my “list collage” but that hasn’t happened so attached is a photo of my initial scribbled sketch.
Looking forward to spending quality time with all your submissions. Hope you’re all well and safe wherever you are.

List poem Cary.pdf

Artist

cary

28 March 2021 7:42pm

Reply to cary

Not sure if this will work but I did a quick audio recording of the poem.

List poem (draft 1).m4a

Artist

carli toliver

29 March 2021 1:43pm

Reply to cary

Hi Cary, glad to hear there was no major damage to your studio, but sounds like it was still quite a week.
And still you wrote this! I so enjoyed your poem! Thank you for the audio, I actually listened to that first, and then listened to it while reading through your poem. The sounds of the words were so lovely. I loved all of it, but I especially enjoyed what you did with G – M (maybe actually D-M) (!). Where the softness or hardness of the words sort of goes back and forth. Gentle to harsh, energetic to light. I noticed it with “pitched, specific” which then became “I” Iain – (not just one but two) and then softened with “those” and “boy” which then became “John” and “not” and “word” – there were many instances of this – where it felt like steps going up, leading to steps going down. “Quaich” was a lovely word/sound and seemed like a treasure, an inheritance, a tradition all in itself. Which I then thought was so clever to insert the Robert Burns poem as the treasure, as a nation’s poet or symbol of “words…intimately said.”

Artist

Kadie Kelly

29 March 2021 8:32pm

Reply to cary

This was a treat for me entirely. Irish words and culture weren’t spoken about or to me. I hope to learn more. Thank you. The audio version was awesome.

Prof

j o h n r o s

30 March 2021 4:32pm

Reply to cary

the recording was lovely… reading, i stumbled over the scots and hiberno but these roll off your tongue with ease… which brings me to:

Slàinte mhath!
But what a slaister!
As words spill

And tongue slips
Despite honoring tradition
Above assimilation.

the whole piece brought personification to word like onomatopoeia… but these lines resonated. hovered for a bit longer.