A Year in Poetry

University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 2004 Searching for amen| A year in poetry Suzanne Therese Schmidt The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Schmidt, Suzanne Therese, "Searching for amen| A year in poetry" (2004). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 3501. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/3501 This Professional Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Maureen and Mike MANSFIELD LIBRARY The University of Montana Permission is granted by the author to reproduce this material in its entirety, provided that this material is used for scholarly purposes and is properly cited in published works and reports. **Please check "Yes" or "No" and provide signature** Yes, I grant permission No, I do not grant permission Author's Signature Date: /iL, 2lf 7WV Any copying for commercial purposes or financial gain may be undertaken only with the author's explicit consent. 8/98 Searching for Amen A Year in Poetry By Suzanne Therese Schmidt B.A. University of Colorado- Boulder, 1986 Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Fine Arts, Integrated Arts and Education The University of Montana August 2004 Approved by Nvr-Agto- Chair, Etf>rojiiy Morrison Dean, Graduate School ~7~2-Q</ Date UMI Number: EP34086 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent on the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMT Pwiftwofl humming UMI EP34086 Copyright 2012 by ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This edition of the work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Schmidt, Suzanne T. Master of Fine Arts, August 2004 Integrated Arts Education Searching for Amen: A Year in Words Committee Chair: Professor Dorothy Morrison ABSTRACT Searching for Amen is a project based on my desire to focus intently in one artistic area: the writing of poetry. My final creative project was twofold: an hour length, independent poetry reading at a small, local museum, as well as a poetry cafe performance by my twenty-three third grade students. My personal work as a poet would inform my teaching of poetry, with a focus this year on revision. I began with a personal commitment to write every day, including writing without stopping for at least fifteen minutes during each session. The writing took me to the completion of a manuscript of twenty-three poems, most of which were edited by a professor of poetry at Naropa University. With this work in progress, I took what I was learning and doing into the classroom and encouraged my students to take a deeper look at their work and extend it into other artistic areas, as well. Their final act was a two-hour performance, titled the Root Beer Cafe. It was a grand finale of our three years together. I leave them this June, confident that writing, for many of them, is not only an act, but has become a way of being in the world. ii Table of Contents Original Project Intent Page 1 En Route Home Page 2 This Writer's Process Page 6 The Bearing Walls Come Down: Revision Page 9 Living in Parentheses: My Final Performance Page 13 Poet as Teacher Page 16 Trying on an Editor's Hat at Nine: Revision Page 19 "Please, oh Please"...Writer's Day Page 20 En Route to the Root Beer Cafe Page 22 Grand Finale: The Root Beer Cafe Page 24 Taking Stock Page 26 In Conclusion Page 28 Bibliography Page 30 Appendix A/ Poems by Suzanne Schmidt Page 31 Appendix B/ Response from Stephen Taylor Page 52 Appendix C/ Writer's Day Page 58 Appendix D/ Cafe Miscellany Page 59 iii Searching for Amen Original Project Intent The original intent for this project, written while wearing my invisible superhero suit, was centered around authentic writing—my students' work, as well as my own. Writing authentically is writing through knowing oneself. It is based on experience and on personal knowledge and feelings, rather than a focus on fictitious events or rewriting someone else's stories. Authentic writing has to do with taking ownership for one's work. I had already begun dialogue and outlining with a colleague about a professional book on authentic writing. In addition to beginning this book, I had planned on writing every day and sending original poetry off to the wider world of publishing, hoping for an acceptance letter, or at least several more rejection slips to add to my file. Finally, I hoped to support my twenty-three third grade students in further developing their own poetry and revision skills, while documenting their work and progress. Accustomed to dipping my toes in cold water, entering slowly, testing but never diving in, I selected poetry as the medium for my final creative project. While interested in numerous artistic outlets: painting, getting beyond my "beginnemess" in the cello, dancing backup for Tina Turner, etc., I recognized in myself a tendency to jump randomly, stretching creative fingers outward in all directions, yet never fully immersing l myself. This final project, then, has been the deep dive into one pool— writing toward poetry, with a goal to allow myself to settle in. En Route Home The term "en route" became vocabulary of choice in my third grade class this year, to describe leaving one place to get to another. It was particularly popular, and then overused by the class collectively, during their first experience of state standardized testing this winter and spring. I believe the original phrase was "Queasy en route to school..During the final leg of my long route home from Missoula last July, I stopped in Grand Junction, Colorado, to see the Colorado National Monument at sunset and then again the following morning as the sun beat down hard and hot in the layered canyon. Feet dangling over a several thousand-foot drop, I felt brave and thought of children's author Byrd Baylor as she wrote about the desert in I'm in Charge of Celebrations. My first broad look down and I became dizzy, en route home. The sound of wings beat past me as I heard the calls of several different birds. These winged creatures looked like bats as they dive-bombed the rocky canyon. I am "cliffwriting" and it feels as such—steep, perhaps bottomless, limitless and large. Frightening too. Sitting on a cliffs edge became the beginning of this writing year. Senses sharp, I took in the view, cinched into word and considered its translation onto paper. Questions flew like the wings of birds riding air currents, vibrating off canyon walls. 2 Does noise affect the natural landscape and how it continues to form, or erode? I think of Annie Dillard. How would she describe the place? I had an idea of writing something magnificent in a place of such beauty, yet it was too much to channel through my pen. Is the purpose of writing anything at all beyond pure self-indulgence? Surely any written words I can muster pale thousands of feet above the canyon floor. I leave the Pulse and this national monument with the weighted question—Why Words??? So I began my project, small and unexpectedly, perched on the edge of a steep canyon cliff. The questions continued: Do words help me sink toward center? And if so, is there a bigger audience beyond "self'? A hummingbird stopped in midair, like a word on the tongue, before fluttering its wings a thousand times, beating its elemental beat, then descended the canyon, and I returned to my road-weathered Toyota. Cliff as Metaphor Between the canyon at sunset and the next morning, there was a poem, the first in a year of detours: Salt I love it when the waitress calls me "darlin"' It helps forgive the food for tasting Italian when I've ordered enchiladas at the "Pancho Villa" Not even the black velvet bullfighter painting on the peach wall, or sequined sombreros in red and black felt can make me think "Mexican" as I dig in to dissonance Spanish rice akin to Ragu over a plate of cheap pasta 3 Longing mixes with a margarita and the salt stings a singular wound of wanting as I read all the table has to offer: paper menu, beer list, leftover local ads in the sleepy town weekly I picked up for company at the door I wonder through the lettuce, dangling off the fork, if this translucent cocktail shields a murky future surface I am about to walk into like the cartoon coyote walking toward another Saturday morning death Edging toward home, tequila takes me on a detour foreshadowing a change in weather upheaval is an earthquake in my psyche and lightning quarters my heart Later, my mother prays to Guadalupe on my behalf who is she—a saint or virgin, a savior for I need one she let me down, slipped on a prayer, fudged an answer in my honor.

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