Episode 9: Golden Shovel & Spoken Word Poetry

The host, Kinda Faith, talks about two different types of poetry: A Golden Shovel and Cento. She also mentions the Advanced Learning Library and Norm's Coffee Bar as places where they meet for the P&P Writing Society. Kinda then discusses her passion project, Faith Publishing Inc., which aims to support underrepresented voices and build a creative community. She mentions poetry contests, editing and proofing services, and her plans to create online courses and help people gather memories. Kinda shares a personal story about her friend's husband who has dementia and her desire to record his stories. She emphasizes the importance of stories and memories. Kinda concludes by introducing the daily mantra and discussing the Golden Shovel poem by Terrence Hayes. I hope you have your cup of creativity with you. This is Kinda Faith, your host to a cup of creativity in the literary lounge, a place where writing doesn't have to suck. Today we are celebrating the last week of National Poetry Month, and I want to talk a little bit about two different types of poetry. They're a little bit more complex, I think they're really fun, it shows your variety and flexibility in your language, and not to mention, it's just, I don't know, they're just fun to go, to write and read and think about. But of course, before I begin, let's do our little shout out. So the first one is to the Advanced Learning Library, 711 West 2nd Street in Wichita. They provide this amazing recording studio, so that's super great. The second one is going to be Norm's Coffee Bar at 613 North Main Street in Newton, Kansas. I love the vibe in there, and two, they offer us some space in the back table, the very very back, which I love because it has this great big window, and why am I talking like that? It's because we have our P&P Writing Society there. We meet on the first and third Saturday of every month, from 12 to 1.30, we focus mostly on adults. For example, there are a couple people that we're talking to about writing children's stories and some other, I don't know, some fun projects. And then from 1.30 to 3, we're focusing our work with teenagers. I mean, and this could be honestly any teenager or anybody that's pretty much not in my creative writing class. So if they're local, get involved. I think this would be super super fun. And of course, I want to tell everybody about my passion project, which is Faith Publishing Inc. So, we already know, I love stories. We learn everything through stories. I think our world will become better if we pay attention to stories and share our stories. So what my publishing company does is that we foster these stories, and we want to support anybody that's underrepresented. We want to do those unrepresented voices, the people that aren't going to be heard. You know, maybe you don't need to be traveling to Chicago or LA or New York to tell somebody your story. Maybe we can just stay here in the amazing heartland and kind of go from there. So what we strive to do is that we're striving to build a creative community. And in that community, and through various services that my company will do, then we create scholarships and fellowships, and eventually like writing retreats and conferences. I mean, oh my gosh, my wish list is crazy. And I know that the board of the publishing company, I'm glad that they get how I work because I'm all over the place. I usually come in, I'm like, hey, I have another idea. Hey, I have another idea. It's just, I don't know. I love, love what I do. Some of the things that are going on is that we just finished up collecting the poetry submissions for the Echoes of the Prairie. So I'm super excited to be going through and sharing some of the poems that have been written all across the state. I think that's going to be great. But I also kind of want to focus on some of the first poems that I've written. So I'm going to be sharing some of the first poems that I've written. So I'm going to be sharing some of the first poems that I've written. So I'm going to be sharing some of the first poems that I've written. Not only are we doing poetry contests, which I'd like to expand that soon, I'm in the works. I'm in the works of creating an editing course, and even a creative writing course that you can take online. So maybe you don't get the lovely pleasure of seeing me spaz out in my classroom, and you have to count how many pen dispensers I have, which I believe is 451. I could be off. Anyway, maybe you don't get that lovely pleasure, or maybe that class isn't offered where you are, and you can do it online. I'd be more than happy to share what I know and don't know with you. So I think that's going to be great. So we also do editing and proofing. I have actually had previous students from a long time ago have contacted me to help them write and proof their college papers. I've had other colleagues, one was the University of Florida, I probably have the wrong school there. There was a group of people that were trying to publish their paper in a journal who also asked for editing and proofreading. So I think that's super exciting. And another one that's kind of, I don't know, I've got several projects, what's the phrase? A lot of fire, the irons in the fire? I think that's how it goes. One of the things that I'd really like to, I don't know, explore is how to gather memories for people. Recently, I visited a really close friend and her family over our spring break, and it was glorious, and I loved seeing her. She is a sparkly heart, right? You know those people that you just like, when you just get to see them, you just instantly smile on the inside and out. She is that person. And I love, love, love her family. But one of the things that was kind of sad, it was bittersweet, honestly, is seeing her husband. And her husband is now, was just recently diagnosed with dementia, and it broke my heart. It just, it hurt my heart. And it hurt me because he knows what's going on. And so he mentions, or he talks to me, like we love sharing stories, I love, and he's a great storyteller. He's a really fun storyteller. But he would write, he would say something, and he's like, Kendra, I can't remember all of this. And so I got to thinking, I think it would be great to record those. And so I'm kind of in the works, I'm kind of trying to, I don't know, iron out a program where we can help people with their memory. Now I'm not saying I'm going to get your memory back, but what I think would be cool though, would be to interview some people. Maybe we could go, you know, I could come over and we could go through your pictures and we're recording you. I think it would, eventually, I would really like to transcribe all of my recordings for my friend and her family, and then give that to them. I mean, if they want a book, you know, maybe I could ghost write it, or maybe we could write it together. I don't know. I think the possibilities are endless. But I do think what's not endless is time. We don't have the time. I mean, we are racing against the clock so we can, you know, get those memories and those special stories down on paper, or at least recorded, so the family won't forget. You know, because you learn everything through your stories, through our behavior. Like for example, and I'll just go off on a sidetrack for a little bit, and then I'll get back to it. I swear, I'll get back to it. One person, my mom and I were going through letters, and she follows her genealogy, and she collects letters, and trinkets, and la, la, la. And one of the things that I found absolutely interesting was, I think, is it great, great? I want to say too great, right? Great-great-grandmother. Apparently, every single spring, she would pull out all of her kitchen furniture and she would paint them, repaint them every single spring. And I just thought that was funny. And of course, why do I think that is funny? It's because my mom is notorious for rearranging her furniture, especially when it comes to spring. So you could never walk around in our house, you know, growing up, because you can never walk in the house at dark. You know how usually you can walk around because you know where everything is? You never know where everything is in her house, because she constantly changes the furniture. And so I think of that, I think that's really hysterical. I mean, I kind of wish that we would have known why that started. And what was even more, I guess, I don't know, interesting, is that my mom didn't know that. She didn't know that about that family habit until we started looking at letters, which is just, I don't know, something to think about, something to think about. Anywho, let me find some centeredness, let me see if I can get on track. So please, please join me with the daily mantra, yes, say this to your dog, say it to your cat, recite it to your family, say it out loud, I don't know, maybe try a British accent, whatever, whatever to have fun, right? So here's the mantra, today I will face fear, today I will be brave, today I will struggle, today I will grow, today I will get through this, huzzah, yay, huzzah. Okay, so now that I'm a little bit more with it, I want to talk about two of my favorite types of poetry, my forms of poetry. And the first one I'd like to talk about is A Golden Shovel. And A Golden Shovel poem, it's actually from Terrence Hayes, and essentially what he ended up doing, let me see if I can find my little notes here, there we go. Terrence Hayes wrote a poem off of another poem by Gwendolyn Brooks, Gwendolyn Brooks also, a poet laureate, wrote this poem called We Real Cool. And what was kind of neat is it's actually a really short poem, and I think it's, I think her poem originally was called The Golden Shovel. The Golden Shovel was the name of a pool hall. And so what she ended up doing is that she found, she was watching, right, because I've talked about this before, she was observing, she was watching these kids who skipped school in order to play pool. And she ended up writing something, okay, let me see if I can find this poem for you. So the original poem, like I said, it's actually called We Real Cool. And the first line shows up the pool players seven at the golden shovel. The golden shovel was actually the name, again, of the pool hall. So here is this, it's a super short poem, so it's like, we real cool, we left school, we lurked late, we strike straight, we sing, Jen, we sing, let's try that again. We real cool, we left school, we lurk late, we strike straight, we sing sin, we sin, Jen, we jazz June, we die soon. Okay, that is the original poem from Gwendolyn Brooks. Now what's brilliant is that Terrence Hayes took that same school, that same poem, and he took every single line of the poem, and he made it the end of his original one. I know that's going to sound kind of weird, right? So here's how it's going to go. So have the first line, it would be we real cool. So we would be the last line of your first poem, of your original poem. Then real, right, real would be the second, the second word of the original poem, that word real is going to be the last word of your second line. And then he just keeps on going, right? So instead, so remember, the original one is we real cool. His line is when I am so small, my dad's socks cover my arm. We, right, cruise a twilight until we find the place, the real, then lean bloodshot and translucent with cool. I don't know, I think this is just the coolest thing ever. I think it is so, so cool. You get to decide, so you're kind of basing your work off of somebody else. So I kind of like the idea of like a daisy chain or a piggyback. So how you start this is that you can either use just one line, it could be the whole poem, you get to decide how long or short your poem is going to be, right? So but whatever poem or line, it could be even a song lyric, I really like using those. You're going to put that in quotes at the very top, and that's essentially going to be the title of your poem. Then after that, then you start putting the original poem, right, you're going to type it out, and it's going to be vertically, so that way you know that that first line is going to, the end of that first line will have the first word of the original poem, right? So if you use, I don't know, the raven, right? Edgar Allen Poe, you know, the famous guy who needed a hug, right? So let's say the whole first line is once upon a midnight dreary, I pondered weak and weary. So the first word is once, you would use the word once at the last, right, the last at the end of your first line. And then it just kind of keeps on going and going and going. I will actually put some examples out there, and one of the reasons why you do this, not necessarily, I don't know, because it's cool, because it is, it's kind of a source of inspiration, and I don't know, you get, I think you can become closer to this, you know, you can become closer to the writer, you can become closer to the idea. One of the things that I've been trying to play with, I think is a really cool idea, is maybe you have a family member that wrote poetry. So I'm a fourth generation teacher, not by choice, it just sort of happened. Anyway, my grandmother was an English teacher, and when she passed away, my mom and I, we went through all of her, obviously all of her belongings, and I found poetry everywhere. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, it's funny, because now I can see some things where I may have gotten that idea, or maybe I didn't know, it was just sort of passed to me subconsciously. She wrote on the backs of checks, she wrote on little slips of paper, she had poetry all over the place, and one of the ways that I, I guess, wanted to pay homage to her, is I did a golden shovel with, off of her poems that I found. So, I don't know, maybe it's a passion, another passion project, I can publish or write down, you know, a poem that she wrote, and then I could create a golden shovel off of that. I think it would be really neat if a whole family could do that, I don't know, like I said, they, the inspiration is endless, I think, I don't know, if you're looking for a challenge, try out a golden shovel, I have had students who, wow, just blow me out of the water, and instead of having, you know, using the original poem at the end of each line, I've actually had a couple students that will do the same for the first and the last, you know, so, for example, if we use that once upon a midnight dreary, right, and the word is once, they would use the word once at the beginning of the line, and at the end of the line, and then, of course, I see it, and I get goose bumps, and I'm like, oh, my God, you're amazing, and then we just sort of go from there, so, try out a golden shovel, I just, I think that you'd really, really enjoy it. The other type that I would like to, the other type of poem that I would like to bring out, is a spoken word, now, I don't have, I would, check out spoken word on YouTube, Button Poetry is probably one of my favorite YouTube channels, there's so many out there, there's so many, so, you can kind of figure out, I don't know, spoken word, it's a kind of a culmination of many things, it could be performance art, it could be rap music, it can just be regular poetry, it's kind of a mishmash of everything, it has also, like, elements of competition, and audience participation, sometimes they are performed at poetry slams, right, and me being completely, like, green, and I'm like, slams, who's slamming who, right, so, you could totally, like, I don't know, talk trash the whole entire time, or you can start a scene where it's just, you're just sharing poetry, you're just sharing poetry, and you're sharing ideas, and then the audience gets to determine, you know, which is the best one, right, and sometimes, I believe the word slam comes from, like, from the audience, honestly, the audience gets to praise or destroy a poem, which I think is, oh, so Hunger Games-esque, I don't know, talk about bravery, it's one thing, it's brave to write and share, it's another one to, you know, write and share and perform, whoa, performance is insane. I will just direct you to several poems, several poets, because it's just so vast, what I would say is that a slam poem is, it can be political, it can be artistic, it can be personal, and usually, you will find a theme or something to say that's really, really important to you. I've heard poems that have to do with a missing identity, meaning that something was traumatic, and they're still looking for themselves. I've seen something funny, where it comes to, like, they're still talking about the land before time, and how, you know, their childhood is like a Lego, right, and then I also see stuff like complaining, you know, don't complain because of this, or Somewhere in America, which is, oh my gosh, it's from the Los Angeles Brave New Voices team, I believe, it's old, where they talk about, oh, Somewhere in America, we can't teach a banned book, oh, Somewhere in America, we have to worry about, I don't know, dress code, or, you know, you see where I'm getting at, you can do about bullying, it could be about, oh my gosh, self-image, it could be about so many things, so I would, I'm just going to give you, like, a little excerpt of one of my favorite spoken word poems is Shane Khoisan, he is, oh my gosh, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, I someday to be, you know, hope to be a writer like him, he ends up doing, to this day, is a poem about bullying, and, you know, just fact check, and see what other people are doing, you know, be empathetic, so I'm just going to read you just a little, little section, and just to maybe get you inspired, right, so, Shane Khoisan, to this day, when I was a kid, I used to think that pork chops and karate chops were the same thing, I thought that they were both pork chops, and my grandma thought it was super cute, so she let me keep doing it, and because, you know, they were my favorite, and it wasn't a big deal, well, until I was seven years old, and there was a bad, a bad fall caused me to bruise my upper arm and shoulders rather severely, and I didn't want to tell my grandma what happened, because I was afraid that I'd get in trouble, because I was playing somewhere where I shouldn't have been, and then one day, in gym class, the teacher notices a bruise, and I was sent to the principal's office. Not long after that, I ended up in another small room, with a really nice lady, who asked me all sorts of questions about my life at home, and I found no reason to lie, because it was pretty good, as far as I was concerned, so I told her that whenever I'm sad, my grandmother gives me karate chops, well, this left, led to a full-scale investigation, and I was removed from my grandparents' house for three days, and then returned when my family asked me how I got the bruises, and news of this silly little story eventually spread through the school, when the students finally caught wind of it, I earned my first name, Porkchop. I'm going to stop there, because I think everybody should experience that, so get online, check out Shane Coyson, check out Rudy Francisco, or Sarah Kay, or Taylor Molly, or, I mean, there's so many things out there to hear, and to read, and to become inspired, right? Not everything has to come from a book, not everything has to come from a video, I do think that everything needs to come from a soul. I think that we need to connect, I think that we miss each other, and I hope that you can find some, and be connected to some of the work that is out there. So, I will put this to a close, my name is Kinda Faith, with a cup of creativity, in a literary lounge, where writing does not have to suck, I truly, truly look forward to reading what you write, until next time.