Thursday, May 17, 2007

Three Beautiful Things 05/17/07: Needing Hugo, Sunshine, Vitality

1. In October 2002 I gave a public lecture to commemorate the twenty year anniversary of the death of Montana poet Richard Hugo. I've reworked this lecture several times and presented my newest version of "On Needing Richard Hugo" to our students in Am. Working Class Lit/Research Writing. It went over very well.

2. I also showed the video "You Are My Sunshine", featuring interviews with miner who survived the 1972 Sunshine Mine fire and others. A deep hush came over the room.

3. I loved working with poems exploring what gives life vitality in my Lit of Comedy class tonight. I hope my students are understanding better how poetry works and are losing the idea that poetry requires deciphering and looking for hidden meaning or reading between the lines. I hope they are learning to let the poems work on them rather than always working one the poems.

1 comment:

Christy Woolum said...

I need to watch that video some time. I have heard so much about it.