Extra Credit: Scissortail Creative Writing Assignment


No class on FRIDAY: attend the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival instead (the website with times and readers is below).  Go to a single session and answer the questions below for extra credit.  I will use this to either excuse a missed response or two on the blog, or to help you with a few extra points at the end of the semester (if you have a borderline grade, for example, it will push you over).

Scissortail Blog: ecuscissortail.blogspot.com

QUESTIONS FOR SCISSORTAIL SESSION:

Answer TWO of the following as a Comment below:

1. Discuss the manner in which one of the authors presented his/her works.  How did he/she read it, perform it, or explain it?  How did this help you appreciate the work or understand it?  Would you have responded to it the same way if you had encountered it in a book? 

2. How do you feel the three works on the panel worked together?  Were there any similar themes, subject matter, ideas, or points of view?  Did one work help you understand another?  Or did they clash in an interesting way?  Why do you think these works were presented together?

3. How did the poet(s) read their works differently than the prose writer(s)?  How does poetry read differently than prose (novels, stories, etc.)?  Which performance did you find most interesting—the poetry or the prose?  Why?  Do you think it would be the same on the page?

4. Discuss one of the works that you responded strongly to—either with surprise, love, admiration, or even disgust.  Why did the work evoke this response from you?  Did other people in the audience seem to respond/react the same way?  Did the author want this response—or do you think he/she might be surprised by it? 




Comments

  1. Casey Bear
    1. I appreciated both readers, Kevin Clay and Connie Squires 9-9:50 North Lounge. They read in their own tone and character. They were not boring or just reading they were spicing up the reading with words they used freely not so proper. I like that they expressed as normal people and not as robots. I feel that going to a preview sells and I will be purchasing a book or 2 today.
    3.The prose really summed up some need to know detail then Connie Squires read a very detailed portion. To hear the authors tone helps the reading progress. The poetry was also nice but more of a hands on read along material.

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  2. Kendall Dobbs:
    I attended Carolyne Wright’s session on Friday at 11am.

    1. I didn’t catch the name of the poem, but it was based “Preacher Bob.” Carolyne gave the audience the context/background of the piece which was very important to understanding the characteristics and actions of this man, Preacher Bob. Without the context, I would have not understood what Carolyne was referencing at all! Carolyn was very animated in her reading which adds to capturing the audience’s attention. I also liked how she seemed to look at the audience it anticipation after she said something funny, almost as if to say “now is the time to laugh.” Or at least that is what it looked like to me. Each poem has a unique rhythm to it that only the author can give us. We all have our own interpretation of how something should be read or when to put emphasis on certain words and syllables, BUT we can never really get the full experience without hearing the author read their own work.

    4. My favorite piece from Carolyne Wright was Confessions of Eulene. This piece was basically a list of ‘confessions’ that I feel like EVERY woman has created before, especially college-aged women. These ‘confessions’ included ideas about Twinkies, tater tots, pizza, boyfriend’s credit cards, and naps. The final line of the piece was “I tell only lies in my confessions.” Haha! Obviously this piece was supposed to be humorous and the crowd reacted well to it. It was relatable in the sense that we all have those silly things that we do that we like to keep hidden from the rest of the world. Carolyne knew that the crowd would like this piece. I would guess that she reads that piece often because it is very entertaining!

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  3. Stormee Chestra

    1. I didn't remember the name of the poem, but I heard Carolyne Wright read it and she read it so smoothly. You could tell she was really into her work and loved what she did.

    3. She read her poem differently, because she was very enthusiastic about it and you could feel that you were actually there when she read her poem. She would laugh on parts of the poems she thought were amusing and you couldn't help but laugh too.

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  4. Paul Sandy
    1) I took the opportunity to sit in on the 2 o'clock session Friday. The first author was Steven Schroeder - Chicago & Boston "e pluribus unum: the new Parmenides" and was the reason I chose this session. I had no idea who Parmenides was and so I googled him to find out that he was a philosopher. After his introduction, the author approach the podium and I was very surprised at his appearance. He had on a ball cap, I glasses, a full white beard, and what looked to be t shirt and jeans. He didn't really give us too much background information about what he was going To be reading except that he would be reading three poems and that they would have a common thread. After he read them it was determined they all included road trips, But I did not find that to be the central theme in the last one only the first two. I would like for him to have prepared us a little more for what he was going to be reading. He had a conviction with everything he read to us, But still managed to deliver it with humor at times.

    4) When this author read the last of his three poems, it had a very long rant that I truly enjoyed. I found myself giving me a plause at times when he would finish certain sentences. Many times I felt that if I did not pay close attention he would lose me in the dialogue of his speech. But as he presented with such ease, he made it easy for me to listen. I'm not sure if he expected any light applause throughout his reading, But at the time I was moved to offer it.

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  5. Ashley Barnes
    1.) I attended the 3:45 reading on Friday afternoon, my favorite was the first reader; Jim Spurr. He read with such passion in his poems and they kept you interested. He was relatable and you just wanted to listen. He didn't try to read proper and it seemed like he was reading most from memory as having lived it rather than just off the paper. I feel that by listening to him read it brought life to the poems that I might not have realized had I been reading it myself.
    2.) I felt that in the reading I attended all of the readings strongly contrasted, they were al set in different times completely. The way they were read was also different and affected the way I heard them and categorized them. I feel like they were grouped together to show the diversity of all of the different readers that and the way although they are all poems they can be read and heard completely different.

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  6. Amory Morgan
    1. I went to the 11:00 on Thursday. I feel like all of the authors did a good job reading. The first man did his crazy though. He spoke very freely and even free handed some of it. There is no way I would have read it in the way he did if I were the one reading it in the book. He used so much enthusiasm and so much emotion.
    4. My favorite author was the older woman that read from her book of memoirs. She chose to read the one about herself in college. I loved this one, I think i liked it so much because it was so long ago, and she was describing how her college experience was. It's funny that even though it was so long ago there were similar things about college that are still the same. I think this is why I related to it. I'm not sure if everyone reacted the same way, a lot of people in the audience seemed to laugh and like it though. I think she was humbled that everyone reacted the way they did.

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  7. Cristian C. Nazario Cruz

    1. They spoke and presented normally, I expected to be expressed very slowly and boringly but I was wrong, because all appeared very natural. This helped me to appreciate their work more because I can see how they are engaged in this work. I respond in different ways, in person if I have a question about something in the book I’ll ask, but if I’m reading the book and I have a question, I’ll answered with my imagination.
    3.The poet was very nice and smooth but a liked more the prose because was more entertaining for me. Yes, it will be similar in the page.

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  8. Nikki Ennis

    1. I attended the session featuring J.C. "Catfish" Mahan. This was my first experience of slam poetry, and I felt Catfish did an amazing job. He was vibrant, yelled, performed in different voices, and overall had a great message. I really enjoyed his performance, and I'm not sure it would have had the same effect if I had read it. However, his overall message and language would have been the same so I'm sure I would have enjoyed it, just not as much.

    2. All of the speakers in the session I attended had works that were reflective in tone, but good-natured and humorous. I feel it was a great session to attend merely for the light-hear redness of the speakers and their works.

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