Performance poem

Stopping by the Hall on a snowy evening
Who could forget the frost at midnight image
Of Coleridge in brief retrospect
To Gurney’s class at State
College long forgotten
How they wheeled me out of there
Scarce would I imagine to see
That scene déjà vu all over again
Reflected in brief words and eye exchange
A view with much more depth
Than I imagined in St. Stephen’s class.
Wrapped in a shawl, eyes
Flashing an instant in the glow of lamps
On the mall I pictured
Earlier in a paper drama
Under arbor beams of giant Acer and Elm
Your face now appearing in shadow
A chiaroscuro affecting likelihood (key er us cur oh)
That reality is greater than fiction
Among a montage is arranged
About other less enduring scenes:
What I can’t forget is the beauty
Of it and a theme that cements it
For that reason alone
Well worth the observation
Of a non-enervating experience
Converted in story board format
In my imagination forever etched
Of snowflakes embracing your face
How could I not be distracted
But only for that recursive snapshot
Realizing this was a moment meant to be
Later while so many others were
Artificial un aesthetic unworthy
Conforming not even with harlequin covers
Wherein lies popular validation
That low and behold identifies them
For the phenomenon they are
Not accountable to science
A different form of reality
And you notice the difference
From that moment a faded intuition
Sensed only several days later
A persistent image evolving through the lines
Wrenched from rubble of fragments
Reflecting ambiguous plurality experiences.

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Assignment: Nonsense poetry or is there something more to it?


Our 4th grade assignment for the next three class periods is to create a Performance Poem of our own based on the Lewis Carroll’s poem ‘The Jabberwocky’

In the first part of the lesson the instructor who is engaging in some experimental research about the effect of multi media on creativity in children, will pass out a copy of the poem; and, then will read it to the class; asking if there are any questions about the poem or the author.

The class will divide in workgroups of four or five students, while the instructor hands out drawing paper and coloring materials magic markers, color crayons, pencils, water colors, to each group; students engage in discussing the poem. Each student in the group will then generate a realistic or abstract image more than one is alright but maintain quality and consistency in your designs - of what the student thinks the Jabberwocky looks like; the drawings may include a title and notes but make sure they are legible. Your group members can make as many drawings as they want before the end of the class meeting. Each group should be thinking about a soundtrack based on a favorite song as a theme for their images. At the end the first lesson the students will turn in their drawings and pictures to the teacher.

For the second lesson of the sequence. The instructor will have scanned all the creations and added some transitions and effects and created a video of each group’s drawings for the class to enjoy and evaluate . The class discusses the videos of the Jabberwocky and votes on which of the groups has created the best images of the monster; each group gets to select a song that would accompany their video; and presents that to the instructor; each group hands in one favorite song, ideally an mp3 file; (this can be an original audio that is relevant or perhaps only tangentially relevant); or we can synchronize with a remote audio in the room for the performance

For the third and final lesson the instructor adds the audio element to the Jabberwocky videos the groups have presented; what we would like to see and hear then is the winning group standing before the class reciting the performance poem in unison as the music video plays for the class; we will present this production package for each group; then the class will vote again to see which performance in totality is ‘best of’. .

After all the Jabberwocky is supposedly about nothing and nonsense speech or writing that is designed to give the appearance of making sense; we want to know what the students make of this; was this really the author’s intent? After the performances do the students still agree on which is the best overall presentation? Why does the piece work? What was admirable about it, and so on. Do you see any correlation between the performance poem each group presented and what is being presented on You Tube or music videos in general ? What are the differences between our amateur productions and a professional performance poem presentation?

Finally was the Jabberwocky purely “nonsense poetry” or is there something more meaningful to it?