OBJECTIVES
To involve students in performance poetry resulting in a Library Media Center poetry reading.
PRESENTATION
Students will be introduced to performance poetry as a dramatic way to present their work. Clips from
The United States of Poetry
(PBS, 1996) will be shown as examples of performance poetry.
METHOD & APPLICATION
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¥ Students will review their “Student Work Files” in order to select pieces for performance;
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Students will discuss their selections and fine-tune them as necessary;
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Students will memorize their selected pieces for homework and will spend part of their class time in rehearsal;
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Students will focus on voice and gesture with respect to rehearsing and will be advised to work in front of a mirror at home;
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Students will be invited to use props and/or costume pieces as they wish;
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Accompanying art forms such as music, dance and set pieces may also
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be included;
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Students will decide upon a program for their pieces and will advise on any technical requirements (sound, set changes, etc.) that they will need (and which I will work with them to provide);
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Students will hold a dress rehearsal prior to performance;
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The class will offer two performances of the poetry reading and
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a couple of classes will be invited to attend each one. The second performance will be video-taped and shown to the school via television.
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EVALUATION
Students will be evaluated based on the “real-world” criteria of audience response as reflected in applause and commentary.
Since W. K. L. Dickson and Thomas Edison’s development of the kinetoscope in the early 1890s in America, the inventions of the Vitascope in France by Thomas Armat and C. Francis Jenkin in 1895 and of the cinématographe by Louis and Auguste LumiEre that same year, the world has been watching pictures move. Two key players transformed peephole novelties (single shots as viewed through a kinetoscope) into multi-shot productions during the early 1900s—George MéliEs of France and an American, Edwin S. Porter. George MéliEs, the forerunner of special effects technique, experimented with trick photography and elaborate sets. While
Star Wars
was a ground-breaking film in 1977 for its special effects, seventy-five years earlier, George MéliEs made astronauts shoot to the moon in a projectile, whereupon the moon wept a tear, in
A Trip to the Moon
. Since the turn of the century, special effects have become increasingly more sleek and sophisticated, but the objective remains the same—to make spectacle believable. Edwin S. Porter, the forerunner of the action adventure movie, created the strong narrative quality of film through the use of the closeup and editing or intercutting between scenes.
The Great Train Robbery
(1903) was comprised of fourteen single-shot scenes that depicted four scoundrels trying to rob a train and meeting up with a violent demise. While Porter didn’t invent intercutting, his skilled use of this technique thrilled the audiences of his day and “. . . initiated an American film style of vigor, movement and melodrama”—Lewis Jacobs (
Movies in America
, p. 10).
By 1906-07 the popularity of storefront Nickelodeon theatres became a mainstay of entertainment for America’s working class for whom it could fulfill fantasies that only the wealthy had seemed privy to. The market demand for moving pictures became so great that over the course of a decade film would emerge as an industry with production studios, a clearing house (The Film Exchange) and theatres throughout the country, thereby establishing the industry’s lines of production, distribution and exhibition. People obviously liked what they saw and wanted to see more. The economic viability of theatres relied on fast audience turnover. Therefore, more movies had to be produced faster, which kept producers on their toes looking for ways to keep up with the demand. Toward the end of the decade, producers streamlined the industry even further—and constrained creativity in the process—by employing a procedural code of direction that played like theatrical melodrama. The creative achievements of MéliEs and Porter notwithstanding, movies had become little more than canned stage plays. But in the next ten years between 1910 and 1920, the innovations of D. W. Griffith and the poetry and pathos of Charles Chaplin would see the movie screen become a virgin canvas awaiting its marriage to art. Upon that canvas would come another masterful brush stroke in the artistry of Oscar Micheaux. Micheaux would write, produce and direct over twenty films from 1918 to 1940, and in the process, he, among others, would help to create a new market for race films featuring African-American casts for African-American audiences.
Within Our Gates (1919)
To give students an idea of what some of the early race films looked like, they will watch several clips from Oscar Micheaux’s
Within Our Gates.
The story line of this movie will be discussed intermittently and student attention will be directed to examples of particular kinds of shots and sequences. This activity will continue into the next class and students will be given the homework assignment to read: “Harlem Renaissance” (
Exploring American History
, pp. 546-547).
The next class will begin with a review of the homework and a biographical sketch of Oscar Micheaux (compiled from
Movies in America
and
The African American Cinema I: Oscar Micheaux’s
Within Our Gates (The Library of Congress Video Collection, Vol. 1). We will also discuss the roles of the producer and the director. The class will continue viewing clips of the film, but will focus on thematic content. After the viewing has been completed, students will be presented with several 8” X 10” cards displaying quotes of some of the intertitle shots from the film. As this 1919 film speaks to issues of civil rights, women’s rights and overcoming the injustices forced upon African-Americans, the quotes selected will reflect these issues. Students will then be introduced to Blues poetry as a uniquely African-American form that sprung from “field hollers” (work songs) and blossomed full bloom during the Harlem Renaissance. Borrowing from the thematic content of the film, students will compose a Blues poem. They can look to the intertitle quotes for ideas if they wish, or they can “go with the flow” of the instrumental blues and jazz music that will be played during this writing assignment. In either case, students will be advised that the content of Blues poetry is “blue” or melancholy. Work will be shared toward the end of class.
The Power of One (1992)
In the first class for this next presentation, students will gain an understanding of South African politics by viewing clips from the 1990 ABC News documentary,
Mandela, The Man and His Country.
This documentary addresses the life of Nelson Mandela and the social consciousness he spread throughout his country that affected African and Afrikaner (white African) alike; and which resulted in his eventual release from prison on February 11, 1990 after having served twenty-seven years of a life sentence. After viewing and discussing the clips, as well as bringing students up to date on the current South African scene, the following quote by Nelson Mandela will be presented to the class:
“I have cherished the ideal of a free society in which all persons live together in harmony and equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for . . . but if need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
Students will select phrases from this quote, e.g., “I have cherished the ideal” or “harmony and equal opportunity,” etc. Each student will have his or her own distinctly unique phrase, from which to begin composing a chant. Students will begin their work by repeating their selected phrases several times until the repetition begins to establish a rhythmic pattern. I will then read to the class, “War God’s Horse Song II” by Navajo author, Frank Mitchell (
Handbook of Poetic Form
, p.45), in order to demonstrate the structure and cadence of this poetic form. The theme of Mitchell’s chant is unrelated to our topic and this sample is used intentionally for that reason so as not to influence the thematic content of student work. Students will work on their chants and review their progress. They will be instructed to complete this work and be prepared to present it in the next class.
Students will present and critique their work on chants in the next class. Since the repetitive phrasing stems from the Mandela quote from which their chants are drawn, the thematic content of their work will more than likely lend itself to issues of freedom (although this is not a requirement). However, in this regard,
The Power of One
will be introduced as our next film presentation.
The Power of One
tells the story of a young English boy (Stephen Dorff) living in South Africa in the 30s-50s, who through his own trials in growing up in a politically turbulent time, is befriended by a man (Morgan Freeman) who would transform him into a “rainmaker” in order to unite the many African tribes into a formidable power of “one.” This film will be viewed in its entirety (as an in-school field trip screening) in order for students to further explore the historical, political and philosophical themes that address prejudice and the intrinsic grace of some special people to rise above it. This screening will also focus on camera work as well as the role of the film editor. Color, composition and sound will be emphasized with regard to the visual, aural, aesthetic and animated qualities of film making. Students will also be assigned to read: “Filmmaker’s Magic” (
Understanding the Film
, pp. 74-79) in preparation for our next class.
The next class following the full-feature screening will be directed to viewing various clips from the movie that deal with metaphorical content and that show how metaphors are created with word and image. Film editing becomes very recognizable in these kinds of sequences where shots are juxtaposed to show comparative imagery. Such an example is evident in the sequence of shots portraying PK’s (the young English boy) problem with the “night waters” that plague him at boarding school. While visiting his home during a semester break, a Zulu medicine man puts him in a trance and conjures up images of loss and fear, which when confronted by PK, cures him of bed wetting. Another powerful image is created when PK looks to nature for direction in his life; when he witnesses the power of a great waterfall and begins to understand his role as the rainmaker. Students will also be apprised of the construction of the metaphor in language as it is defined by its Greek root words; and will be introduced to types of metaphors.
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META (beyond, across, over)
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PHOREO (to carry, bring, bear)
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METAPHOR (to carry one thing over to another)
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TYPES OF METAPHORS
one thing
carried over
to another = metaphor
sorrow
is like a
thorn = simile
sorrow
is a
thorn = metaphorical comparison
sorrow
of
thorn = (made out of)
sorrow-thorn = kenning
In the next class, students will use the creative device of metaphor to work on prose and abstract poems. They will be given a word list that will include thirty-two words that have to do with the film as well as its historical backdrop, e.g.,
Apartheid, identity, African, freedom, rainmaker,
etc. Students will be asked to look at the list and see which words jump out at them and to circle those words. “Dawn Rising,” a quietly powerful instrumental from Silk
Roads
by Kitaro, will be played during this time. Within about fifteen to twenty seconds, each student should have approximately five or six words circled. The next step is to write down these selections in a column on the lower half of the Word List page; and while looking at the selections—and
not
thinking too hard—jot down images that come to mind for each word. Then each student will select the word and corresponding image/s that he or she finds most appealing. The favored word/image will be transcribed onto a fresh sheet of paper. Students are then apprised of stream-of-consciousness writing and are instructed to use their selections as a starting point and to see where stream of consciousness takes them. They may also refer back to the word list if they wish.
Work in progress will be reviewed after a few minutes and critiqued with regard to emotional impact and comparative imagery. Some students’ work will have found a focal point, in which case the writing will be more structured. Others may find their writing more disjointed. Either case is fine in that both prose and abstract poems will be the final expression of writing to be focused on. Both forms will be introduced by excerpted examples from
The Teachers and Writers Handbook of Poetic forms
: “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll (p. 1), as a sample of abstract poetry; “The Beggar Woman of Naples” by Max Jacob (p. 152), as a sample of prose poetry. Students will then be instructed to massage their work into either a prose poem or an abstract one.
