Successful Event: What Makes It Poetry

The audience, a standing room only crowd, was eager, involved, and asked penetrating questions. The panelists were engaging, informative, and thoroughly entertaining. The moderator shepherded the discussion with a delicate touch. Poetry books flew off the shelves, dropped into people's pockets, and went to homes to be savored and pondered later. New friends were made and old friendships renewed. Vistas were opened.

Victoria Cech spoke eloquently to the role of the arts and humanities in our day-to-day lives, to cheers from the audience. After explaining how pitch accent, meter, and rhyme helped people remember poems in the era before writing was broadly available to transmit history. Defending the role of meter and rhythm in shaping an emotional response, she also notes that with the advent of writing, the need for these mnemonic devices began to fade and poetry began to change, open to different structures, new patterns, daring ways of organizing the words.

Dave Caserio drew an immediate and positive response the moment he began his recitation from Beowulf. Even without translation, he brought the Old English to life and people were able to follow the storyline. He also read an example of a familiar modern poem that had been translated into Old English and he recited a poem of his own that clearly carried the traditions coming down from ancient poetry. Of this poem, one person from the audience commented, "It was so exciting, my heart was in my throat [while listening]."

Tami Haaland, former Montana Poet Laureate, spoke passionately about how categorizing poems or slavish adherence to one poetic form or another is, ultimately, unimportant. What is important is that the poet chooses how to express the poem, but if it is a good poem, it will go out into the world where each individual who encounters it will put his or her own interpretation on it. She further explained that debating the differences among lyric essays, short, short stories, and prose poems is likely to lead to some very interesting and valuable discussions. But she cautions, we must not hang our hats on these distinctions.

Lowell Jaeger, current Montana Poet Laureate, addressed the primary question—what makes it poetry—with humor and incisive commentary. Reading Henry Taylor's "One Morning Shoeing Horses", Jaeger illustrated how different ways of reading a poem bring out different aspects of its meaning. Although the poem is a sonnet and adheres closely to the form, the punctuation leads the reader, perhaps, to miss that aspect of the poem and focus on different aspects of the story. Why poetry? Poetry, like other arts, wakes us up as human beings, opens us to the experiences of life.

Bill Kamowski wowed the audience when he responded to an impromptu request from the audience to recite something from Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. He drew on his years of experience teaching poetry to undergraduates to illustrate his points. Poetry can stimulate the imagination through its incompleteness. The reader completes the meaning through his or her own imagination. 

Bernard Quetchenbach, answering a question from the moderator, talked the "goal" of poetry. Although the poet may have many goals in mind, in the process of writing the simple act of creation is its own end. He noted that a poet's goal may often be just to finish the poem. The art of poetry and the genre of poetry are two different things. The art of poetry can exist in any genre.  Genre matters if you are editing a book of poetry, but if you are just reading you can see that poetic musicality can exist in prose as well as in poetry. The essence of poetry can exist even in prose.

Gavin Woltjer, the discussion moderator, did an excellent job of reading the audience and directing the discussion.

This! This is what a community-owned bookstore does best.

"I just wanted to acknowledge what a brave and wonderful event you dreamed up, organized, and sponsored.  I'm so impressed!  And what a wonderful audience.  I called [Humanities Montana] to let them know that this event was one of the most genuinely stimulating panels I've ever witnessed.  Many thanks, again, to you, your vision, and your team.

—Lowell Jaeger

We could not have pulled this off without the inspiration, wit, deep knowledge, and grace of the panelists and the moderator. The event turned out to be remarkably valuable.

So glad I didn't miss this.

—F. Cramer Lees, audience member

Videos from the Event

This was our first foray into the world of live video. Mistakes were made and lessons learned. On the whole, some excellent action was captured.

 

Montana Poet Laureate, Lowell Jaeger, speaking to the question, “What Makes It Poetry?” at This House of Books. Infused with a gentle humor, his comments were spot on. With apologies to Bernard Quetchenbach whose comment I managed to miss recording. #WhatMakesItPoetry 

 

 

Former Montana Poet Laureate, Tami Haaland explains that debating the differences among lyric essays, short, short stories, and prose poems is likely to lead to some very interesting and valuable discussions. Listen to this short video clip to find out her conclusions about the merits of hanging our hat on these distinctions. #WhatMakesItPoetry 

 

 

An 11-year-old understands a poem that stumps Freshman and Sophomore college students. Bill Kamowski tells a story from his days of teaching poetry. #WhatMakesItPoetry

[Your faithful cameraperson apologizes for the jittery camera work. She was distracted by spilling her cup of tea on herself. And then the video lost the connection.]  

 

 

DUM-da-dah, DUM-da-dah, DUM-da-dah… Victoria Cech describes the role of pitch accent, meter, and rhyme in poetry in the days before writing. We hear an example from the Illiad in Homeric Greek. #WhatMakesItPoetry 

 

 

Dave Caserio wakes everyone up with Beowulf. He brings the words to life; no translation needed. #WhatMakesItPoetry [duration about 12-and-a-half minutes]

 

 

A question posed by Gavin Woljer of Billings Public Library, moderator for the panel discussion, asked whether we should read a poem in a normal conversational voice and if we do so, it is prose? Montana Poet Laureates, Lowell Jaeger, and Tami Haaland respond. #WhatMakesItPoetry 

 

 

Bill Kamowski, Victoria Cech, and Dave Caserio on the importance of (but not mandate for) pitch, meter, and rhyme in poetry. At the 6-minute mark, our moderator Gavin Woltjer poses a new question about how to read a poem, to which Lowell Jaeger responds by reading one of his. #WhatMakesItPoetry