Oral Presentations - Session 1E: UC 332

Spatial Poetry

Presentation Type

Presentation

Faculty Mentor’s Full Name

Elizabeth Robinson

Faculty Mentor’s Department

English

Abstract / Artist's Statement

My Senior Honors Research Project is a creative project in the form of a poetry chapbook. This chapbook is partnered with a 5-7 page expository essay complete with bibliography. My focus for this project is space in writing, specifically the spatialization of poetry on the page. This application could be through punctuation, inter-textual space, and vast amounts of negative space on page. I have researched techniques and ideas posed by, but not limited to, poets Barbara Guest, Janet Holmes, M. NourbeSe Philip, and Cecilia Vicuña. I examine their books of poetry as well as critical essays and poetics.

The expository essay focuses on why these techniques and ideas are important to enhancing poetry and three or four central ways I see space as operating on the poetic page. Thus I also discuss how negative space within the poem is analogous to “real” life: negative space, or what isn’t happening, in our spoken language, in our body language, in our facial expressions, or in our thoughts determines what will or what will not happen in our lives. I explain how I applied these techniques in my own creative work.

The creative portion of the project is a poetry chapbook around 25 to 30 pages that applies the spatial techniques and ideas mentioned above. The bibliography will be of the books researched. My presentation will condense my critical and creative work in an oral presentation with PowerPoint. That way, listeners will have the opportunity to gauge the relationship between the spoken text and the text as a visual entity. I will employ the first third of the presentation to focus on those poets I studied, the middle third reading my own poems and the last third answering questions from the audience.

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Apr 12th, 10:00 AM Apr 12th, 10:20 AM

Spatial Poetry

UC 332

My Senior Honors Research Project is a creative project in the form of a poetry chapbook. This chapbook is partnered with a 5-7 page expository essay complete with bibliography. My focus for this project is space in writing, specifically the spatialization of poetry on the page. This application could be through punctuation, inter-textual space, and vast amounts of negative space on page. I have researched techniques and ideas posed by, but not limited to, poets Barbara Guest, Janet Holmes, M. NourbeSe Philip, and Cecilia Vicuña. I examine their books of poetry as well as critical essays and poetics.

The expository essay focuses on why these techniques and ideas are important to enhancing poetry and three or four central ways I see space as operating on the poetic page. Thus I also discuss how negative space within the poem is analogous to “real” life: negative space, or what isn’t happening, in our spoken language, in our body language, in our facial expressions, or in our thoughts determines what will or what will not happen in our lives. I explain how I applied these techniques in my own creative work.

The creative portion of the project is a poetry chapbook around 25 to 30 pages that applies the spatial techniques and ideas mentioned above. The bibliography will be of the books researched. My presentation will condense my critical and creative work in an oral presentation with PowerPoint. That way, listeners will have the opportunity to gauge the relationship between the spoken text and the text as a visual entity. I will employ the first third of the presentation to focus on those poets I studied, the middle third reading my own poems and the last third answering questions from the audience.