F455i SESSION 05

March 29th, 2021
Learning Form and Breaking Forms to Create New Forms:
Creating Hybrid Pieces

Notes/Definitions to keep in mind:
Make sure every poem and prompt are accessible to you.
The Forms: Haibun, Epistolary, and The List Poem
 

Writing Prompt:
Create TWO poems using a mixture of the forms
Each Poem must be a mixture of 2 or 3 forms
If you want to add a form that you know of to the mix as well, go for it!
For example:
A Haibun which ends with an epistolary poem
A List Poem in the form of an Epistolary Poem
A Haibun which includes a list in the nonfiction section and ends with an Epistolary poem

*Due to group (Online Studio 4/2)
*Feedback from group members due 4/4
 

Weekly Homework #5
Write a Quad-Haiku (4 Haiku’s as one poem)
Write a Triple Tanka (3 Tanka’s as one poem)

Journal Entry #5
*Links forthcoming for this assignment

Sketch Entry #5
Design a hybrid flower or tree using multiple parts of different flowers, trees and 3 other items.
*Ongoing journal assignment weekly “obsession.”
 

Discussion

  • Kadie Kelly: This is version 2 of my haiku hybrid. Still in need of...
  • carli toliver: sorry, not ocular - m eant to say aural!
  • carli toliver: Tracy,  I loved this piece! Some lines that really stood out for...
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Anastacia-Renee
Prof
Anastacia-Renee
29 March 2021 7:22am
Anastacia-Renee
Prof
Anastacia-Renee
29 March 2021 7:32am

Journal Entry #5
“Luxuriate” in this interview with Audre Lorde (A hybrid writer), she discusses her career and what being a “poet” means to her. For your journal assignment, don’t censor yourself. Take notes freely as you feel moved to do so while hearing this interview. Ask questions as well.

Kadie Kelly
Artist
3 April 2021 1:45pm

So much to think on here. Thank you for sharing this interview, Prof. A. I liked what she said about what it means to survive and how she learns / discovers by doing, and how being a poet informs her life/ has transformed her. And her drive to empower / organize with her poetry is remarkable, and powerfully felt.

Anastacia-Renee
Prof
Anastacia-Renee
29 March 2021 7:32am

Forgot to add the link!

cary
Artist
2 April 2021 8:19pm

Hey Prof. A. & everyone,

My obsession this week was continuing down a path of exploring local history, which led me to reading source materials from the mid 1830s about the punishment of a white abolition activist, Amos Dresser, for bringing abolitionist pamphlets to Nashville.

Simultaneous to that reading, i revisited the experimental 796 page sequence poem MotherBabyHome (2019) by Kimberly Campanello.
Content warning: this work reports the historic abuse cases & infant deaths in Irish religious institutions from the 1920s to 60s. Images of the poem, including video of a performance reading at http://www.kimberlycampanello.com/motherbabyhome

As a result, attached is an (as yet) untitled sequence of two hybrid poems about Dresser’s case – comprising haiku, list, documentary, found, erasure and visual forms.

Last edited 3 years ago by cary
Kadie Kelly
Artist
3 April 2021 6:00pm
Reply to  cary

Hi Cary, thanks for including the link to MotherBabyHome. I appreciate that through these weeks you have been/are connecting me to Ireland/Irish culture and poetry there, and your language/s/your personal and poetic perspectives. It feels like a profound opening of possibilities to me. I have a lot of Irish heritage but for various reasons have felt cut off from it, with a sense of impossibility around claiming any of it. But I am feeling a bit less of that interacting in this studio with you.

In response to your hybrid poem:

The positioning of the words, uses of space, slashes (lashes) and enlarged, bold text – the heading, and sections, footnotes, effectively lead me to feel I was a part of the horrific and unjust scene.

I did not know people who were believed to be abolitionists were treated this way then. And it makes me think about now, as you stated:

We cannot judge the Actions of the past by the Standards of today.

How we have activists suffering death with impunity.

And so many innocents killed by white terrorists banking on this impunity.

Last edited 3 years ago by Kadie Kelly
Jeannine Bardo
Artist
4 April 2021 11:32am
Reply to  cary

Hi Cary,
It is great to see what you are doing with all of your research and I really appreciated being introduced to the powerful work of Kimberly Campanello. Thank you.
I loved how she made the text an object and how the text had its own imagery and I loved how you included that as well. The slashes in your work were very effective in light of the punishment and the awful, contradictory justification of the treatment of Amos Dresser.
-“they had acted
conscientiously, with a full recognition of their duty to their God” … h
-“The sentence being again repeated, it was received with great applause, accompanied by stamping of feet and clapping of hands.”
I also appreciated the different size of the texts and placement that made the work read with a psychopathic tone, the victim who is debased and the sadistic abuser who keeps declaring his evil as righteous. You captured the chaos of the violence.

carli toliver
Artist
4 April 2021 1:06pm
Reply to  cary

Hi Cary, 

There’s so much to say about your hybrid poem. I loved how intentionally executed this is, creative and inventive to mix all the different forms.  All the layering and context with citations, at least for me, sent me on a search for connection and meaning and reference points and understanding  – which, again for me, mimics my sense of immobility as I read this account, a stuckness, in trying to locate how Belief and Meaning are making sense of one another to make no sense of the Actions taken.  Truth, was another word I was thinking of, which never appears in your poem. Vigilance and Safety are measures needed to preserve Belief and Meaning – but somehow this does not land upon Truth.  So amazing.  I’m also from VA and looked up Pittsylvania, VA – which appears to be a county now, maybe it was once a town, but is just south of Lynchburg, VA.  Which I also thought was interesting with respect to Lynch Law. 
I thought the ordering of the poem as well was lovely – with no resolution – the entire thing is a looking backward at the Exhibition, at the Judgement, at the Testimony; it all lends to the helplessness that I felt as I read – the helplessness of Amos and myself as a reader. The footnotes that refer to other footnotes – just circumambulate the frozen past, and more dangerously circle Meaning/Belief that is held by others with power that as a reader feels impossible to alter.

j o h n r o s
Prof
5 April 2021 6:07am
Reply to  cary

i am so interested in the informational/research nature here. even with the footnotes i wonder what is cited — what isn’t — and that dynamic back-and-forth feels entangled in a really good way.

there is a darkness throughout. ominous. especially with the line:
“The sentence being again repeated, it was received with great applause, accompanied by stamping of feet and clapping of hands.” … then repeated. very effective. 

the 20 lashings represented by forward slashes is also quite effective.

i struggle a bit with the font size differences throughout. i appreciate the visual enhancement and directness that causes us to focus — almost like a wordcloud or something like this — but i wonder if it is too heavy-handed? might the piece be more effective if we stumble on these words naturally? just a question… not necessarily a suggestion.

carli toliver
Artist
2 April 2021 8:38pm

Hello all,
Attached is my hybrid poem- a mix of haibun and an erasure poem. Really enjoyed listening to the Audre Lorde interview and looking forward to reading everyone’s work this week.

cary
Artist
2 April 2021 9:09pm
Reply to  carli toliver

Carli,
I find this gorgeously haunting
– the (s)pacing and the beauty of each of the fragments was really borne out when, returning to the top of the fragments, I started letting my eye drift down through the words in loose columns rather than lines. In every direction, the spaces between the words are suffused with such atmosphere. Like silence you can hear in fog. On third reading I just let my eye slowly wander back and forth, up and down, through the words and spaces – to spend time inside it.

Kadie Kelly
Artist
3 April 2021 6:09pm
Reply to  carli toliver

Hi Carli,

This page of poetry took me so many places. A dragon’s mouth. Wow.

I could relate to what you wrote about sweeping the back patio,
…but living in someone’s sad, mute mind.

And then this sentence, was such an illumination:

And then become a story pulled out of the ether by a poet.

Followed by examples of women who were pinned down.

The whole first sentence was powerful for me.
 I would have to slay the dragon that was my father or …

I could picture Sf going east , the bay bridge

-unfinished monument
-free land and sky

stood out to me, gave me pause

Jeannine Bardo
Artist
4 April 2021 11:47am
Reply to  carli toliver

Hi Carli,
The haibun is powerful with so many good lines in just a little space and the erasure following sets it up like a dreamlike escape from a bad place. Fragments of memory and history. I also like the image of the text on the page. The first stanza is solid and rigid and brings me back to the line “I would forever sweep a square concrete patio, shoulders slumped, in the backyard of a home” and then the text jumps off the patio and porch and swings back and forth on a different journey that leads to a better place.

j o h n r o s
Prof
5 April 2021 6:15am
Reply to  carli toliver

“forever sweep a square concrete patio, shoulders slumped, in the back yard of a home – perhaps not physical, but living in someone’s sad, mute mind”

i was going to start pulling lines from the first segment but really the whole thing is meaty… dripping with sustenance of memory and self.

then the sense of erasure… after the idea of “losing the memoryof my own face” is so damn powerful! 

the journey — the unknown — like settlers discovering others’ land with attempts to know it (learn about it) — know self (learn about self). 

j o h n r o s
Prof
2 April 2021 9:12pm

this has been a week! goodness. almost didn’t get to this. as with most weeks there is much to still do… and not entirely good hybrid examples…i hope to get to more tomorrow. in the meantime, here is what i put together… (again… these all need work, i know… )

🙂

Last edited 3 years ago by j o h n r o s
Kadie Kelly
Artist
3 April 2021 6:16pm
Reply to  j o h n r o s

First hybrid: this journey was very interesting – you hit on various parts of your identity, and a couple of moments of clarity that reversed your course. the reading, and the “stumble” into your own identity. The moments of the poem where you state “the body of christ,” were powerful.

Second hybrid:

I really loved the setup and descriptions and the ending:
she is our empire state building, standing above all in the skyline of her city

Your location poem was so cool. It was exciting to me. I loved that you listed addresses. I find locations to be so full of memory, facts, proof, and experience them as instantly multi sensory, multi purpose-ful.

Last edited 3 years ago by Kadie Kelly
Jeannine Bardo
Artist
4 April 2021 12:00pm
Reply to  j o h n r o s

It is interesting to read these back to back. The first one, your struggle with the rigidity of life, the church, everything you weren’t and then your release and the second a place that embraces everything you are, no need to escape.

I love how you open the second one with the story of your grandmother’s wish and you close it with her as its embodiment

carli toliver
Artist
4 April 2021 1:44pm
Reply to  j o h n r o s

John, the poem about your grandmother really resonated with me, as I also have sort of a larger than life impression/love of my grandmother.  I loved how in your description of your grandmother, it begins with her aspiration, her dream, or her desire – to tell her father, I am going to do this one day – which sort of contains the past (her father) and the future (her desire) at once.  Then the poem shifts into “Ta was solid ground” as “unconditional and constant” as this monument in NYC and she becomes as concrete as that future she desires – to you, a descendent.  I felt like, by the end you had taken her place, telling us not just who she was but also how love contains our desire/longing as well.   

The first hybrid, body of christ, was really powerful and I could also relate to – growing up Catholic as well.  The “body of christ” handing out of the bread – was so vivid! Just as vivid as the night with the “boy who would fulfill my lustful rage.”  The tanka at the end appropriately, does not provide resolution, but I connected it to what happens at the poem’s beginning – the magic of ritual and performance – to the poem’s end when, as the more direct participant with this ritual and magic, you are drawn to your own fingers and where they’ve been; as your distributing the “body” you are drawn to your body – to the physicality of your body “searching for more than release.”   When “imagination” becomes “touch” it’s sort of like the spell is broken.

cary
Artist
5 April 2021 5:00pm
Reply to  j o h n r o s

Hey John,

You first hybrid has been rolling around in my mind the past few days, particularly the body imagery (a point of connection between my hybrid and yours, despite vastly differing contexts on the surface):

the embodied/bodily experience so effectively interplays with the body of Christ – the latter’s repetition establishing it like a center point or fulcrum around which the entire piece turns.

Rather than being simply contrasting – binary – experiences (the sexual vs. the religious), the presence felt on Saturday reveals, or even amplifies, the real absence in the Sunday experience, made all the more clear by the way one experience is carried forward on the skin into the other.
If there is a presence in the religious service, we are asked to feel it with you: not affirming presence but rather one of external power and palpable risk – of being found out, of admonishment, of rejection – something that has to be fled precisely because it will not affirm. And in more positive terms, not returning to Mass is thus a brave act of self-determination, of liberation.
Which had me thinking about how what is being offered in the Mass is insufficient because it isn’t offered to the whole person, but only to those parts of oneself that conform/ are deemed acceptable. Which is no gift at all, but a conditional transaction: The body of Christ. Terms & Conditions apply.

The sexual encounter can obviously be seen as creating a crossroads moment – a choice made (to not return to Mass) but i am struck how sexual encounter acts here as a revelation: one that has flooded the senses – its own magical, ecstatic even, experience of invitation and affirmation. The searching and the release of the last line reinforce that theme.

The more I’ve reflected on your words and how the language we use to describe sexual and religious experiences intersect – the teenage rite of passage colliding with the rite of the Mass – the more it seems that a wonderfully & disruptively queer question is potentially provoked for the reader, that extends well beyond the autobiographical:

“what gets counted as (legitimated) as sacramental, and what as profane?”

Which is a very rich seam indeed, and feels full of possibility.
Thanks so much for sharing this piece. It resonates deeply.

Kadie Kelly
Artist
3 April 2021 1:12pm

I was a little out of it yesterday/this week, sorry! I got my second vaccine. Here is my Sketch Entry #5, which I designed by combining different photos, most which I have taken, and one that I found online (that looks like a pink planet). I will post my hybrid poems a little later, hopefully.

IMG_0888.jpg
IMG_0906.jpg
Last edited 3 years ago by Kadie Kelly
Kadie Kelly
Artist
3 April 2021 7:12pm
Reply to  Kadie Kelly

self-portrait.mixedmedia.3.29.21

self portrait march 29.png
Kadie Kelly
Artist
3 April 2021 3:44pm

This is a note and list as a Haibun, I think. 🙂

j o h n r o s
Prof
5 April 2021 6:24am
Reply to  Kadie Kelly

the visual congestion at top is so interesting. claustrophobic line want breath, but need protection, so they stay huddled.

i love a roman numeral — it brings me back to catholic school. a visual representation that hold so much weight. 

the list which is both personal and archival meanders as it flows. you let us in just enough with recognizable notions like we may fill in the visual blanks and connect with your experiences as ourselves. 

i love the use of the word “suns” replacing what i assume is “sons”?

Kadie Kelly
Artist
5 April 2021 2:37pm
Reply to  j o h n r o s

I’m glad you appreciate those little details. Yes, you are right “suns” are my “sons,” beams of life and light in my life!

Jeannine Bardo
Artist
5 April 2021 1:53pm
Reply to  Kadie Kelly

Hi Kadie,
The chaotic visuals as a list is a great description of the data that is stored on our devices, an overwhelming amount of info that has passed through us. I got the sense that you had your device set for a random slide show and I can picture you furiously writing notes, trying to get the info before it disappears. The beginning is what I am sure is familiar to many and the one calming moment throughout was when you wrote about swimming. Hope that happens sooner rather than later 🙂

carli toliver
Artist
5 April 2021 4:45pm
Reply to  Kadie Kelly

Hi Kadie, 
I really liked the use of the haibun and list here.  The list as an archival practice goes seamlessly well at the end of a haibun, being this mix of non-fiction, documentation but sometimes with a little story; I was thinking of “red rose outside of mom’s front window.”  Someone who reads the list or views the pictures might not know that additional context/story, they might just see a red rose. Or that “holding tuxedo kitten” is “on Thanksgiving.”  I like those kinds of moments juxtaposed with something like “black rectangle” or “looking down at the camera.”  But also I just liked the idea of listing photos – because it’s kind of something we all have at this point, on our computers or in files somewhere, those parts of ourselves.

Kadie Kelly
Artist
3 April 2021 4:23pm

haikus followed by flashbacks list

j o h n r o s
Prof
5 April 2021 6:44am
Reply to  Kadie Kelly

the final flashback resonates as a way to close… all of this defeat… yet this hopeful young girl. 

the tension and anxiety heightens throughout… there is a ricocheting affect of the bombardment of disappointments. sadness in feeling alone. this builds and doesn’t let up. its powerful.

Kadie Kelly
Artist
5 April 2021 2:34pm
Reply to  j o h n r o s

Thank, John. I appreciate your comments, as always. This has been such a great experience in this studio. 🙂 I will miss it!

Jeannine Bardo
Artist
5 April 2021 2:18pm
Reply to  Kadie Kelly

So powerful and a real testament to how much you’ve accomplished on your own!
Writing down all of the disappointments and abuses and then calling your own children “suns” is a hopeful contrast to your relationship to your mom. Your mom is a big, dark shadow, but you shined throughout and I left the reading thinking of you and not her. I was really impressed with the final phone call and how you kept your power even if she left you with a big open question. And even though I want you to be triumphant I feel her heavy presence. I can feel myself getting sucked in. Especially when she adds, “I love you” before she drops off. You did a great job bringing the reader into the emotions you experience.

These sentences back to back are heartbreaking and a reminder of why the “I love you” is so loaded.

Flashback to my roommates dedicating afternoons to catching up with their mom’s on the phone.
I tried to act like I could just talk to my mom – on a call once then, and she thought I was being sarcastic with her.

Kadie Kelly
Artist
5 April 2021 2:33pm
Reply to  Jeannine Bardo

Thanks for your witnessing, jeannine. I love being in this studio and will miss it!

Tracy Holtham
Artist
3 April 2021 5:23pm

Hi Everyone

Apologies for the delay. Here is my first Hybrid Haibun.

Kadie Kelly
Artist
3 April 2021 7:28pm
Reply to  Tracy Holtham

I love the meta here: I felt my countenance !

Terrified as I joined an Instagram Live for the first time. – Relatable

osseous fractals – the use of the word fractrals blew open my mind here, as I looked it up and saw: Fractals are infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar across different scales. They are created by repeating a simple process over and over in an ongoing feedback loop. Driven by recursion, fractals are images of dynamic systems – the pictures of Chaos.
as a definition. Wow.

accommodating my curls-I loved this phrase, instead of “controlling my curls” or something of that nature.

(observations) – a very nice word for a first video date and makes me want to see what it feels like to use that word in replacement of “first date” all the time.

...lap on my mind’s surface – i first read as laptop’s mind surface, which was interesting, even though that’ not what it says. I thought your choices of words were very cool, interesting, different, thought provoking combinations/constructing unexpected images and feelings.

The one word line of “On” was particularly powerful.

j o h n r o s
Prof
5 April 2021 6:54am
Reply to  Tracy Holtham

there is such a choreography here. between the visual discomforts and audible sensibilities. its at once defeated and hopeful — a feeling very close to us all these days. maybe even a sense of groundhogs day… living on repeat as we begin to feel comfort then uncover more anxiety.

the final stanza was exciting to see the playful visualness come through both in its concrete abstraction and the acrostic… its playful tension both contradicts and eases as we read through and feel the tension hum. 

Jeannine Bardo
Artist
5 April 2021 2:28pm
Reply to  Tracy Holtham

This encompasses so much of the past year’s social interactions and new normals. How we are alone at home, but the world is entering and we fumble through it. I especially liked the numbers poem and how it ended.

Five digits on my right-hand scramble and pace
Galilean moons of anxiety, hope, curiosity and fear wind and lap on my mind’s surface 
A hat trick of log-in attempts
Duo of screenshare and microphone
On

Jeannine Bardo
Artist
3 April 2021 8:53pm

I definitely need to work on these!
A poem in 5 haikus with a little something on the side
An epistle with a tanka

j o h n r o s
Prof
5 April 2021 7:19am
Reply to  Jeannine Bardo

epistle to the trees:
“takes me back to the ancient parcel of my soft grey matter”
“if I hear you speaking but I’ve lost the language?”

these resonated… though so did the visual qualities of the writing, like segments of your work. snippets of you and the trees, together. 

Last edited 3 years ago by j o h n r o s
j o h n r o s
Prof
5 April 2021 7:23am
Reply to  Jeannine Bardo

“like a glaze or jelly, or condensed milk” — oh so good! 

the lyricism here is lovely… and the side notes swing like pendulum as reconfirming. standing.

“And released my hidden breath”
“My sisters passed Luna through”
“The blue and white whale wilted”
“Like an angry captured bear”
“Or whistle the same moaning song”

the middle lines all feel connected — solid and visual in a way that keeps pulse throughout.

Kadie Kelly
Artist
5 April 2021 2:56pm
Reply to  Jeannine Bardo

Your Epistle to the trees – I appreciate what I experience as a slow, deep, contemplation.
I liked
the nteenth letter of Jeannine to the trees.

I love the idea of that, a series of these contemplations and ruminations.

The question
what are we so afraid of?

Followed by sheer helplessness to do anything to elongate the lives of the crimson red bellies/offspring – brought a real fear into my view – that we can’t do anything about any of it (injustice in the world).

It resonated while also sounding off an alarm – in me – like – is there really nothing we can do – in this unjust world to make things better? I want to rail against that!
Letting go and entering the cyclical nature of nature verses the idea that things can be more helped by human interventions… A lot of tension there for me. A lot to keep thinking about.

Kadie Kelly
Artist
5 April 2021 3:03pm
Reply to  Jeannine Bardo

a poem with 5 haikus –

The jelly glaze was really fun and interesting.

I liked

in spite of her loft

next to but spaced apart from

in spite of her distance

Carrying ancient knowledge – goes well with the epistle to the trees

Tracy Holtham
Artist
4 April 2021 6:21pm

Here is a Hybrid Epistolary.

Jeannine Bardo
Artist
5 April 2021 1:22pm
Reply to  Tracy Holtham

So much love for the radio! I love the recurring worry of not knowing a song and what that does to you. This happens to me too. I have always wondered how long it took a person to become comfortable with a new song, the radio supplies the dosage until somehow it becomes familiar and doesn’t grate.

“If I can’t ascertain a song I love instantaneously, my heart falls into detriment”
“Unidentified
Songs lead to panic gateways
I become DJ”

And how you and the radio are partners, dancers, collaborators
“You illustrate me and help to draw my way through.
To interrogate the facsimiles of fictional truth”

carli toliver
Artist
5 April 2021 5:05pm
Reply to  Tracy Holtham

Tracy, 

I loved this piece! Some lines that really stood out for me were: 
Surround sound incentives create a uniform precedent 

And this one – I remember doing this as well: Disappointed the song ran out before I could press record on my double tape deck. 

The word play and crackling in these sentences: The years light up my ears. We overcame the temperamental aerials, frequency signals glitches and audio fuzz.

These lines as well, I really liked how they were poetic speak/structure embedded within the letter: 
Collect record stacks and gatefolds deluxe. 
Play out from my lounge to a unique crowd

I think what I also loved about this piece is your range of word selection and intentional arrangement, with such a keen ear to sound.  For me that’s just another lovely layer to this and very much resonates/echoes the ocular presence of the radio.  Also, I love the radio! So enjoyed reading this.

carli toliver
Artist
5 April 2021 5:07pm
Reply to  carli toliver

sorry, not ocular – m eant to say aural!

Tracy Holtham
Artist
4 April 2021 9:32pm
Last edited 3 years ago by Tracy Holtham
j o h n r o s
Prof
5 April 2021 6:57am
Reply to  Tracy Holtham

you have a beautiful way of creating contradiction in a way that feels both hopeful and lost — successful and defeated. there is also beat here… a score for something. a stand of beat and tune — consistent and unwavering. 

Jeannine Bardo
Artist
5 April 2021 1:31pm
Reply to  Tracy Holtham

This is a good one to read and reread. The sounds, the vibrations, that are both defined and made in with bringing voice to the text. I especially like the way this last stanza sounds
Bricks and rage brigade
X-rays identify the
Resonance of foes

Tracy Holtham
Artist
4 April 2021 10:01pm
Jeannine Bardo
Artist
5 April 2021 1:35pm
Reply to  Tracy Holtham

A good finish to all of the other works you posted. All the sound and music and now the performance. It also reminds us of what a live performance is all about and how special it is because of the experience.

Kadie Kelly
Artist
5 April 2021 1:04am

This sketch has three themes: mirror (reflection), keys (sounds/inspiration), vagina with keys inside of it (feminine power), on a pink and coral background. It was created in Procreate

mirror.keys.vag.5MB.png
Kadie Kelly
Artist
26 April 2021 10:46pm

This is version 2 of my haiku hybrid. Still in need of lots of work.