Reading Of Poem Research Articles

Voices From the Fringes: The Eco-Poetics of Niger Delta Women

To say that the Niger Delta literature or the poetics of extraction in the Delta has attracted numerous scholarly engagements is an understatement. However, most of the critical works written about the Niger Delta have been by male writers such as Gabriel Okara, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Tanure Ojaide, Ogaga Ifowodo, Nnimmo Bassey and others who are known for drawing attention to the environmental despoilment and the suffering of the various Indigenous communities of the Delta. In this article, I am interested in the framing of the Delta by female poets from the region. Building on Gayatri Spivak’s concept of the subaltern, I ask, are Niger Delta women writing? And if so, how do they contextualise women and nature in their poetic imagination? Mindful of the complexities in the region, what literary devices do they employ to aid their navigation of the murky confluence of state power, multinational corporations, and environmental degradation that abounds in the region unabated? This work applies the theoretical positions of ecofeminist scholars to the close reading of select poems from Sophia Obi’s Tears in a Basket (2005), Ekaete George’s Saints and Scoundrels (2018), and Iquo DianaAbasi’s Coming Undone as Stitches Tighten (2021).

Text and Intertextuality in Modern Arabic Poetry of Yoruba Scholars

Objectives: This paper examines Arabic poetic texts produced by modern Yoruba scholars, to study how they inter-textualize with poetic texts of classical and early modern poets in Arabic. It does a critical reading of select poems from the corpus of Isa Abu-Bakre (b.1953), and Afis Ayinde Oladosu (b.1967). Whereas the former follows the traditional system in the composition of his poems, the latter writes his collections in free verse. Methods: The paper adopts a method of historicizing the annals of intertextuality, before proceeding to exposit, closely read, and analyze intertextuality cues in the poetry of Yoruba scholars. It hinges its discussions on the works of Julia Kristeva, Roland Barthes, James Porter, Lev Vygotsky, Graham Allen, Ahmad Az-Zoubi, and Muhahammad Miftah among others. Conclusions: The study shows that Arabic poetical compositions of modern Yoruba scholars often intersect, not only with poetical texts of classical and early modern poets in Arabic, but also, they inter-textualize with texts from the primary sources of Arabic literary tradition- the Glorious Qur'an and Hadith.

Evaluating Poetry: Navigating the Divide between Aesthetical and Creativity Judgments

ABSTRACTThe comprehension and appreciation of poetry are inherently subjective, involving both creativity and aesthetic appeal. However, do these assessments of aesthetics and creativity rely on identical criteria, or do they vary depending on underlying factors? We addressed this question in this study. Participants (N = 96) evaluated 25 English poems across nine subjective characteristics: reading fluency, vivid imagery, perceived emotions (valence and arousal), surprise, originality, usefulness, aesthetic appeal, and creativity. Linear mixed‐model analysis revealed that a poem's creativity was primarily predicted by its originality, followed by its usefulness and vivid imagery. Conversely, the evaluation of a poem's aesthetic appeal followed a different route; it was mainly predicted by a poem's reading fluency, followed by arousal, valence, and vivid imagery. Additionally, the association between creativity and originality was significantly moderated by participants' personality traits, specifically, openness, vividness of visual imagery, and curiosity. The relationship between aesthetic appeal and reading fluency was moderated by the vividness of auditory imagery trait. These findings suggest that a poem's creativity evaluation closely aligns with the standard definition of creativity, relying on its originality and usefulness. The study provides novel insights into the implicit internal models in the evaluation of poetry.

The Creative of Isan Music in Soundscape, Battle of Naga

Objectives: This article is part of the research with the objective of creating Isan music in the soundscape, "Battle of Naga." Methods: The researcher used a creative process in music creation, consisting of two parts. The first part is song design, where the researcher took five parts from the story of Sinxay on the Battle of Naga to use as the song structure. Isan melody was used to reinterpret and give new meaning. The melodies included Lai Thang San, Lai Thang Yao, Lai Ka Ten Gon, Lai An Nangseu, Phaya poem reading, and Sinxay melody. The second part consisted of finding the soundscape from Isan musical instruments through the process of playing and adjusting the sounds using technology. This involved capturing sounds of Naga, water, wind, atmosphere, and various situational sounds from the story, and projecting the sounds of Isan musical instruments into water, mixing them with actual instrument sounds. Results: The sounds included the sound of Naga, water, wind, atmosphere, the sounds of situations happening in the story, and the sound projection of Isan musical instruments into the water mixed with the actual sounds of the instruments. At the same time, the sound was mixed with the blowing of wind into the microphone to create the sound of the Garuda’s wings. Additionally, the researcher used the microphone to rub against a fishtank to create sound effects for accompanying the music, such as in the battle scene. Conclusion: The creative process used in this research successfully blended traditional Isan melodies with innovative soundscapes, creating a unique auditory experience for the "Battle of Naga." This approach not only preserved the cultural essence of Isan music but also introduced new dimensions through the use of technology, enhancing the storytelling and emotional impact of the music.

Un/published: Presence and Absence in Contemporary Erasure Poetry

Abstract Erasure is a popular form of appropriative poetry that refashions found material by partially effacing it. Made of salvaged fragments and deletion marks, erasure poetry puts processes of obliteration on display and provides a structural analogy for both the social erasure of marginalized groups and the critical rewriting of hegemonic discourses. This essay understands erasure as a constraint-based appropriative practice and differentiates it from other forms of conceptual and documentary poetry. It argues that erasures use the oscillation between presence (of the retained words, the redaction marks and elisions, and the newly created poem) and absence (of some of the words and material and medial features of the prior text) to destabilize the boundaries between the published and unpublished, between what is heard and what is silenced, between the sayable and what exceeds representation. Reading poems by Tracy Smith, Janet Holmes, and Jen Bervin that erase the Declaration of Independence and the poetry of Emily Dickinson respectively, the essay shows how erasures intervene in public conversations about social justice by repurposing and revising their intertexts, allowing new speakers, knowledges, and narratives to emerge. Erasures prompt a layered reading that directs the readers back to the source and its sociocultural contexts while drawing them deeper into the imaginative and discursive world of the erasure poem.“Erasure poetry allows us to read in recognition of what is absent or missing and to imagine new voices and perspectives emerging from the cleared and transformed spaces of the page.”

The Case for Reading War Poetry as Ephemera

The First World War blurred the lines between “ordinary” and “literary” writing practices. Many sources corroborate this: necrologies written about poets who died in the act of writing not a poem but rather a letter, or introductions to poetry collections where bereaved families and friends admit they had no knowledge of their loved one’s writing practices until they found a journal full of poems after the author’s death, which they only published as a posthumous tribute. This article uses examples of French poetry of the Great War to explore this permeability between what is considered war poetry and what is considered war ephemera. The main question it addresses is what changes when we look at the war poems that were initially ephemera or ordinary writing. Whose stories get told when poetry is studied not as literature to be judged as accomplished or failed art but as a way of writing to make sense of the world? It argues that when we choose to read poems as ephemera and from the point of view of a larger anthropology of writing practices, diverse histories emerge and communities who write poetry not only as an artistic pursuit but also as a means of organizing experience and leaving traces behind reclaim ownership over their own narratives. This can challenge the false equivalence between the cultural history of warfare and an intellectual history of the elites at war and includes poetry within paradigmatic shifts that place objects at the centre of mediations of the experience of war.

From the Cradle to the Grave: A Feminist Stylistic Reading of Select Poems from Juka Jabang’s The Phoenix

This study examines the use of poetic artistry as a contribution to social reformation in Juka Jabang’s The Phoenix to highlight the cultural and social tendencies that contribute to the oppression of women in the Gambian context. It draws attention to the oppression of Gambian women not just as a general societal predisposition, but as a phenomenon deeply rooted in the most fundamental unit of the family. Using Sarah Mills’ model of feminist stylistics, the article aims to explore the use of point of view, agency, metaphor, and transitivity to expose the socio-cultural beliefs and practices that perpetuate the oppression of women in Gambian society. The study adopts a qualitative, linguistic-cum-literary analysis based on four poems purposively selected from the collection on the basis of their thematic preoccupation with the plight of women in a male-dominated society. The analysis also pays attention to the literary devices appropriated by the poet in a bid to poeticize the experience of Gambian women at the hands of an unrelenting male hegemony. The analysis reveals that cultural beliefs in the so-called superiority of the male child, the ostensible impurity of uncircumcised women, the submissiveness of women particularly in marriage, and the professed right to multiple wives as major factors that legitimize the oppression of women in Gambian society.

Interpreters of the Real: Poems about Photographs in the Periodical Press, 1840–1860

ABSTRACT Short, anonymous poems were a common feature in the popular magazines and literary journals of photography’s first two decades, the 1840s and 1850s. Yet despite its wide readership, periodical poetry has been largely neglected in histories of photography. Through close readings of periodical poems, this essay addresses this gap and adds a fresh perspective to the complex history of photography’s reception. It argues that whereas Victorian journalism often concentrated on photographic realism and focal clarity, periodical poets were more interested in photography’s ability (or inability) to convey the emotional and psychological qualities of visual experience. By drawing on the technical process and language of photography but concentrating instead on affective qualities, the poems discussed here repositioned familiar debates about photography’s status and made their own claims for the values of both arts as interpreters of the real.

On the Nature of Poetry, Parallelism, and Methods: A Response to Ernst Wendland

This article is a response to Ernst Wendland’s article—also in this issue of Journal of Translation—which interacts with my cognitive approach to biblical Hebrew poetry, especially my recent monograph, Unparalleled Poetry (2023). In this article, I set my work within the broader context of biblical poetry studies and explain how it draws from literary and cognitive research to provide a robust framework for the concept of the poetic line—a contribution to not only biblical studies, but also broader poetry studies. The poetic line gets to the heart of the nature of poetry: the line is central to not just poetic structure (up to the level of the whole poem), but also poetry’s potential for rhythm and effects and construction of meaning. My view of the centrality of the line affects how I address various issues related to parallelism. I close by discussing the role and limits of method in regard to both poetic lineation and reading of poems.

Человек, читающий стихи: ритуальная природа поэтического костра

This article provides research into poetic bonfires, a collective reading practice in modern Russia, for example, the Marina Tsvetaeva bonfire and the Nikolay Rubtsov bonfire. On the popular poets’ death day or birthday, readers gather to read his or her poems and sing songs in a special place related to the poet’s biography. This practice is important in the context of reading practices and the formation and maintenance of a readers/reading community. The authors interpreted through the prism of cultural anthropology collected materials such as ethnographic diaries with thick descriptions and interviews. The authors make the assumption that poetic bonfires, with their ritualistic nature, are connected with the concept of cosmos (everything has to exist in right order). The cosmology of poetic bonfires is set through the repetition of behavioral templates, for example, reading poems and making the bonfire, and by semiotization of the area where the poetic bonfire takes place through the biography of the poet and the readers’ own poetry. Legitimization of the poetic bonfire depends on these factors, but at the same time, in most cases the poetic bonfire itself is informal. Therefore, the informal status of the poetic bonfire makes it a safe space and a special emotional refuge for the participants. The rituality that characterizes poetic bonfires allows participants to unite as a whole group with their own rules and behavioral models.

A Reading of Nissim Ezekiel's Poem “Enterprise” Through Judaic and Biblical Symbolisms

A Reading of Nissim Ezekiel's Poem “Enterprise” Through Judaic and Biblical Symbolisms

From poetry out loud to thinking out loud: The ESL students’ experience

Public speaking apprehension can detrimentally affect academic performance, attendance, participation, and motivation. This study investigates into the formidable challenge of public speaking anxiety (PSA) among students during oral presentations and proposes an innovative solution through the utilisation of Poetry Out Loud activities. Two interventions were executed with ESL learners and the researchers used qualitative methods to deduce the result. The initial phase involved the collective reading of a poetry compilation, fostering a shared experience. Subsequently, students engaged with the "Hello Poetry" website, selecting and practicing poems in pairs to refine expressive delivery. The culmination consisted of creative video presentations of their chosen poems. Once the completed the activities, they were given an open-ended survey. The study uncovers that Poetry Out Loud activities positively influence students’ speaking skills. These findings underscore the efficacy of communal poem reading and interactive recitation in bolstering confidence, oral proficiency, and reading fluency. Implications point toward the importance of innovative strategies to mitigate PSA-related challenges and nurture essential public speaking aptitudes.

I Am Sick of Reading Poems about Paintings by Vermeer

I Am Sick of Reading Poems about Paintings by Vermeer

The power of poetry

In a survey in January this year the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) and Macmillan Children's Books found that poetry is read aloud less than once a week in 93 per cent of primary schools, and in nearly 20 per cent of schools children never hear a poem read aloud. Charlotte Hacking, Learning and Programme director at CLPE shares her tips for using poetry in early years settings as a key vehicle to teach children about language as well as inspire a love of reading.

A STUDY ON EXPLORING PRESCHOOL TEACHER PRACTICES AND PREFERENCES IN USING EARLY LITERACY ACTIVITIES

This study aimed to review the roles and practices of preschool teachers regarding reading and writing skills in preschool education. A sample of 234 preschool teachers working in Ankara participated to this study. Through employing complementary mixed method design, both qualitative and quantitative data were collected by using a descriptive data collection instrument, semi-structured interviews and observation form. Research findings indicate that preschool teachers mostly conduct teacher centered activities focused on concept learning for literacy development at desk activities. The preschool teachers stated that they usually distribute books and other printed materials to children; to read poems, fairy tales, stories and picture books aloud, and to examine those to give information about their features such as the back and front covers, the beginning and the end of the book. Although misconceptions and different activities were observed, it was found that teacher preferences were generally made in the light of the materials and attitudes of the institutions they worked in.

William Carlos Williams and West Coast Poetic Culture: Personalist Poetics from Paterson to Bolinas Mesa

Abstract This article aims to show the pervasive influence of William Carlos Williams’s later more “personalist” work, in particular, on the poetry of Kenneth Rexroth, Philip Whalen, and Joanne Kyger. I analyze how Williams’s later poetics influence West Coast poets, particularly Kenneth Rexroth, whose idea of a “personalist” poetics stands opposed to the “impersonalist” aesthetics of T.S. Eliot-Ezra Pound wing of modernism. I then introduce close readings of several poems of Philip Whalen, whose personalist style is more internal and less extraverted than the other poets and represents another step away from the modernist Williams and toward a highly subjective personalist aesthetic where the poem can become a graph of the poet’s “mind moving.” I go on to argue that Joanne Kyger’s poetic practice is much influenced by Whalen’s innovative take on Williams’s discursive poetics and contend that Kyger’s Zen-influenced “poetics of interconnectedness” contribute to her reframing Bolinas as an aesthetic site strongly connected to Williams’s post-Paterson sensibilities.

Better Intoned Than Read: Sound and Matter in God's Trombones

This paper offers close textual readings of poems from James Weldon Johnson's 1927 collection, God's Trombones, uncovering in Johnson's language resonant clues to his thought. In contrast to his disaffected novel The Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man (1912), Johnson's sermon–poems, through reengagement with the folkways of traditional African American worship, forge out a more potent creative space. As hybrid works, they diminish the gap between text and speech, and demand careful and lively ways of reading. My argument situates Johnson's practice in the contexts of sound recording, ragtime, and programmes for African American uplift at the turn of the century.

Apostrophe as Play in Seventeenth-Century Lyric

This article offers a renewed consideration of the figure of apostrophe in seventeenth-century literature by focusing on a genre in which it is especially prominent: lyric poetry on the Creation. Drawing on Jonathan Culler’s account of apostrophe’s “effects of presence,” it shows that Renaissance poets apostrophize the created world not merely to praise it as something outside and before them, but also to channel the power that created that world into the rhetorical present of the poem. In readings of Italian, French, and English poems, the article argues that poetry’s own linguistic vitality, conferred by the “event” of apostrophe, becomes in these texts a proxy for the event of Creation itself, in which God’s word breathes life into matter—Creation understood, however, not as harmony or fixed order but as a power of free play. At the same time, the article is attentive to the ways in which the powers of apostrophe shift in different cultural contexts. In English poetry in particular, the overt exuberance of apostrophe’s “effects of presence” as seen in continental poetry turns inward, reflecting the creative power of a mind cut off from external Creation rather than recapitulating it. But the article shows that despite these differences, apostrophe’s function as a fundamental medium of rhetorical power—and as a means of negotiating the divide between human and divine forms of Creation—is a constant across lyric written in several languages at a time when national literary traditions are often thought to be diverging.

Concrete Poetry: A 21st-Century Anthology. Ed. by Nancy Perloff

This book might be more accurately called a ‘primer’ or ‘reader’, rather than an anthology, as it should be an essential text on any introductory reading list relating to concrete poetry or the twentieth-century literary avant-garde more generally. Perloff’s introduction is a detailed and analytical account of the genre, tracing its international development from the 1950s to the present day. The selection of poems grew out of a 2017 exhibition curated by the editor – in her words, it singles out some of the leading practitioners of concrete poetry rather than aiming to be a comprehensive scholarly retrospective of the form. However, the selection has considerable range and depth. While readers familiar with the work of Eugen Gomringer, Augusto de Campos or Ian Hamilton Finlay might quibble the inclusion of certain poems over others from their œuvres, the cumulative effect is to provide a satisfying overview of work by poets who self-identify as concrete, as well as those who are influenced by its formal developments. Over 150 pages of the volume are given to the work of concrete poets themselves. In the first three sections the work of three seminal practitioners – de Campos, Finlay and Gerhard Rühm – is showcased through sizeable selections. Subsequent sections are arranged by country of origin: Brazil, Austria, Japan, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Germany and France, and the United States and Canada. A final section, ‘Postlude’, includes a small selection of visual poetry which builds upon the typographical manipulations of concrete, including American poet Susan Howe’s collages and the digital poetics of Brazilian André Vallias. In total there are 134 poems by 40 poets, plus further images of poems in the introduction. Throughout, the quality of the reproductions is stunning. Poems are printed in colour, an essential semantic as well as aesthetic component of much concrete poetry. Where the original print format of a poem deviates from the two-dimensional page, as with the folded paper structures of Finlay’s ‘standing poems’, these are presented with detailed photographs, often on a double page. Perloff includes an explanatory note for each poem. These notes offer glosses or translations of non-English texts, provide contextual information, outline influences behind the work, and suggest illuminating readings of poems which some readers might otherwise dismiss after a brief glance. The anthology also includes biographical notes on each poet. There are some enjoyable surprises in the selection, such as John Cage’s ‘Lecture on Nothing’, which shares with concrete poetry a commitment to manipulating typography and the page’s white space; Cage might best be described as a fellow traveller, rather than a card-carrying member, of the concrete movement. At times readers familiar with how concrete poetics moved off the page and into three-dimensional contexts may be left wanting more: there is no space, for example, for photographs of Finlay’s poetry garden Little Sparta, in which the physical situation of textual works in relation to each other and the wider garden space is an essential aspect of their meanings. But this is an excellent, visually pleasing selection which has the potential to bring concrete poetry to a new audience both within and outside the academy.

Gods, Goddesses, and Mortals for the 21st Century: The Reinstallation of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts Collection of Ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Art

Gods, Goddesses, and Mortals for the 21st Century: The Reinstallation of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts Collection of Ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Art