Faculty Relations
Seven poems
A compassionate-trickster exploration of the social space shared by minted members of the academic institution of art
(also included some participation from staff)
Produced as part of Artist in Residence at UMass Dartmouth Center for Visual & Performing Arts 2019-20
This is what the academic Institution of art looks like sometimes.
This began when I sat in on an impassioned faculty meeting (no meeting minutes were taken) and wrote down quotes that were emotional, personal or referenced the social space. The quotes then formed a poem - the start of a series entitled Meeting Minutes that went into faculty mailboxes.
I envisioned the project to end with a faculty hangout where faculty could curate music, share food, and I would perform with the poems. Everything went virtual when the pandemic hit, and I stopped joining faculty meetings. To connect faculty and staff across their quarantines as they slogged away at online learning, I started a chain of Exquisite Corpse poems. Each person had to write two lines and pass on one line to inspire the next person's response. The writing prompt was to reflect on the pandemic/distance learning/quarantine/home life. Each poem receives a group credit.
A PDF booklet is forthcoming (end May) and a printed booklet in Fall 2020
Thank you CVPA for letting in an outsider
#tenure #artprofessor #coworkers
A compassionate-trickster exploration of the social space shared by minted members of the academic institution of art
(also included some participation from staff)
Produced as part of Artist in Residence at UMass Dartmouth Center for Visual & Performing Arts 2019-20
This is what the academic Institution of art looks like sometimes.
This began when I sat in on an impassioned faculty meeting (no meeting minutes were taken) and wrote down quotes that were emotional, personal or referenced the social space. The quotes then formed a poem - the start of a series entitled Meeting Minutes that went into faculty mailboxes.
I envisioned the project to end with a faculty hangout where faculty could curate music, share food, and I would perform with the poems. Everything went virtual when the pandemic hit, and I stopped joining faculty meetings. To connect faculty and staff across their quarantines as they slogged away at online learning, I started a chain of Exquisite Corpse poems. Each person had to write two lines and pass on one line to inspire the next person's response. The writing prompt was to reflect on the pandemic/distance learning/quarantine/home life. Each poem receives a group credit.
A PDF booklet is forthcoming (end May) and a printed booklet in Fall 2020
Thank you CVPA for letting in an outsider
#tenure #artprofessor #coworkers
MEETING MINUTES
EXQUISITE CORPSE POEMS
3/4
Greybrownbronze pushed aside.
Birdsong, yellow trumpets, palebright baby leaves.
A green lattice lawn chair sits upon early spring grass
The tiny chirp in the floor as I walk by
The anxious thunder of heels down the stairs
Stop short to eat another mini waffle
Artistic works endure, recent works promise, tragic stories die
Morning — cloudless, windless, appearing, waking, crashing ... will it always be this way?
Twenty-four hours that hold what feel like hundreds.
And here are the things I've most appreciated in this time:
My sourdough starter, my pet, my hungry friend
Spreading exponentially but without fear
Finding pleasure in the little things: reconnecting with friends
With ourselves, as days and nights bleed one into another
Taking deep, cleansing, refreshing breaths
And making yet another trip to the freezer for more ice cream
And piled on Spoons of Gooey Chocolate Fudge.
Back to the fridge, for some whipped cream and a cherry.
That fridge has seen way more of me than usual.:)
Another resolution gone to shit.
by Andrea M Fernandes, Charlotte Hamlin, James Lawton, Jason Loete, Laura Franz, Rebecca Uchill, Ross Schlemmer, Sue Costa, Suzanne Schireson, and Viera Levitt
4/4
Oheless, ssellhope, lesshope, hopless, hawpless, hapless, hopeless.
Now is the time for every communard to begin drafting plans for the nucleus of a new society.
Nuclides nicely knitting nocturnal neurosis.
Navigating natural nuisance negating nurture.
The tangle twists and turns, fading in the shadows of the evening.
A sunny day, a breath of light.
by Aaron Bourque, Elena Peteva, and Travis Neel