Favorite Poem Video Project

Compilation of videos created by students in English 1604: Introduction to Poetry. The instructions for the project were for students to choose a poem that especially resonated with them, to read or recite it on video, and to talk a bit about the poem’s personal significance. They were also asked to discuss some of the aesthetic elements in their poem that made it an effective work of art. The project is modeled on the Library of Congress’s Favorite Poem Project, instituted by the poet Robert Pinsky in 1997 when he was the nation’s Poet Laureate. Pinsky asked for Americans across the land to share their favorite poems and say what they loved about them. Belying the notion that no one reads poetry anymore—or that only academics or other writers do—tens of thousands of people representing a range of ages, occupations, levels of education, ethnicities, and backgrounds submitted poems. They talked about the ways in which poetry inspired them, moved them, consoled them, helped them cope with life’s vicissitudes, gave them hope, enlightened them, amused them, made them laugh, made them cry, taught them about themselves, and connected them to the rest of life and humanity. The students in this group of videos have done much the same. They, too, come from a wide and varying range of majors and interests, from Biochemistry to Business Information Technologies, from Mathematics to Sociology, from Neuroscience to Fashion Merchandising, from Environmental Sciences to—English! Several have graduated and gone on to law school or launched careers. In their enthusiastic and felt renditions of the poems, they show how words create the world, how words express us and create us, and how we create the world through words. Poetry is for everyone. Poetry is as necessary as food. Go read a poem a today. Or write one! 2016/04/04 - 2016/05/02