Poet Laureate, Robert Pinsky
Project description
1A.You will begin the activity by spending some time at the Favorite Poem Project website. This project
was started by former Poet Laureate, Robert Pinsky. A Poet Laureate is the country’s official poet
appointed by the Library of Congress each year. The Poet Laureate’s role is to promote poetry across
the United States in any fashion the chosen poet finds helpful.
Pinsky’s Favorite Poem Project brought him across the United States to ask a diverse group of
Americans to identify their personal favorite poem. These poems have been collected in anthologies and
also published on the official website. Further, a number of mini documentaries filming readers of poems
explaining why a particular poem moved them are featured on the website and also DVDs. Your
discussion allows you to explore some of these favorite poems before moving on to your own personal
exploration of poetry.
Favorite Poem Project: Americans Saying Poems They Love. (1997). [Collection of 50 short video
documentaries collected in partnership between Boston U., the Library of Congress and other
organizations, funded by the National Endowment of the Arts and the Carnegie Corporation of New
York]. Retrieved from http://www.favoritepoem.org/videos.html
This discussion builds through two distinct parts.
Part 1
First, visit the Favorite Poem Project Videos website and choose a minimum of 3 videos to view out of
the 50 videos provided. In the first part of your post, identify the three videos you watched, e.g. We
Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks read by John Ulrich (plus you’ll list two more videos).
For each of the three videos you choose, make sure to clearly identify in your post:
the title of the poem
the poet’s name
the name of the reader of the poem
Part 2
Next, visit the Academy of American Poets at http://www.poets.org OR the Poetry Foundation at
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/. At one of these sites, you will find the actual text of ONE (1) of the
three (3) poems in the videos you chose.
Read your ONE (1) selected poem aloud.
Describe briefly in your post, in no fewer than 150 words, a reaction you experienced to the video that
impacted you the most. Perhaps you might discuss why or how that particular video appealed or
related to you or how your reading of the poem differed from the narrator in the video. Be as specific as
you can.
Part 2 EXAMPLE: In Brooks’ “We Real Cool,” the poem’s depiction of inner city youth presents with irony
kids trying to be cool even while predicting they will die a premature death. In Natatcha Estebanez’
video of 20 year old John Ulrich reacting to Brooks’ “We Real Cool,” Ulrich discusses this poem and his
life in South Boston where he lost several of his neighbors and peers under the age of 25 to drug
overdoses and suicide. Ulrich mentions how he formed “South Boston Survivors” to help fellow young
people find art and redirect the despair he felt was “flooding the streets of South Boston.” He mentions
how he was introduced to Brooks’ “We Real Cool” in high school when kids he knew were dying. Ulrich
describes how the poem reflected on his own skipping school. Ulrich discusses how what seemed
innocent at first, like skipping school and playing pool, ended in tragedy in real life, not just in the
poem, with young people getting lost and some losing their lives. Now Brooks’ poem helps Ulrich help
others.
This particular poem and video moved one Excelsior professor in particular [who came from an
impoverished inner city youth,] and who to this day facilitates community poetry workshops for inner
city youth and/or summer intervention camps for young people in the same spirit as Ulrich’s “South
Boston Survivors.”
Brooks, Gwendolyn “We Real Cool.” Retrieved from the Poetry Foundation at
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/17315
Brooks, Gwendolyn “We Real Cool.” [narrated by John Ulrich in video produced by Natatcha Estebanez].
Retrieved from the Favorite Poem Project at http://www.favoritepoem.org/index.html.
1B.John Ulrich citing Brooks’ “We Real Cool” from Brooks, Gwendolyn. “We Real Cool.” [Narrated by John
Ulrich in video produced by Natatcha Estebanez]. Retrieved from the Favorite Poem Project at
http://www.favoritepoem.org/index.html
Earlier in this module, you watched videos and heard how others recited their favorite poems and
explained what the poems meant to them. Then you chose a video and a related poem to explain what it
meant to you. You also read about how Seamus Heaney in his poem “Digging” wrote about his family
heritage and Irish roots.
Now, you will read three (3) poems that all express sentiments about America, i.e., the United States,
and what it means to be an American, and you will describe how at least one (1) poem expresses some
specific sentiment about its subject.
This activity will help you recognize and describe elements that contribute to the power of poetry and
allow you to move forward into your own personal exploration of a poem.
For this activity, you will read the following three (3) poems that all express sentiments about America,
i.e., the United States, and what it means to be an American:
Whitman, Walt, “I Hear America Singing” at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/
Hughes, Langston, “I, Too,” at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/
Hughes, Langston, “Let America Be America Again” at http://www.poets.org
To complete this activity, you will:
Read carefully the article “How to Read a Poem” at the Poets.org website.
Select one (1) of the Langston poems or the Whitman poem to discuss in depth in your discussion post.
Select three (3) questions from the list of questions in the “How to Read a Poem” article section titled
“Talking Back to a Poem.”
Answer your three (3) questions for the one (1) poem you choose to discuss and clearly identify (include)
the questions in your discussion post.
Apply the three (3) questions you selected to the poem [you selected] by doing a little “digging” of
your own.
For instance, Langston Hughes’ “I, Too” poem at the Poetry Foundation website includes a link you can
click on titled “Related Content.” In this case, you can also use Wikipedia, BUT be sure to verify your
sources and cite them! You also can use the “Glossary of Poetic Terms” and/or VirtuaLit’s “Elements of
Poetry” to help you apply these tools in your analysis given in your discussion post.
For each of the three (3) questions you answer about your selected poem, supply one (1) quote (totaling
three (3) quotes) from the poem to support and illustrate your point/s.
Gathering together all of the evidence in Steps 1 to 5 here, complete your discussion post with a
concluding sentence about what you think the primary “theme” is for the poem.
Your initial post should be no fewer than 150 words and should include correct APA citation of cited
information from your readings. Also make sure to respond to two of your peers in posts of no fewer
than 50 words. Explain why or how you agree or disagree with their close reading.
Compose your work using a word processor and save it, as a Plain Text or an .rtf, to your computer. Be
sure to check your work and correct any spelling or grammatical errors before you post it.
When you’re ready to make your initial posting, please click on the “Create Thread” button and
copy/paste the text from your document into the message field.
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