Sunday, July 27, 2008

Week Three: Reflections from Lead Artist

from left: Michael Baker, Clara Forrest, Tiara Cannon, Savanna Pryor, Danielle Sanders, Lawrence Frater, Demetrius Cooper

Week Three has been, as some of the interns have said, intense and various. The main task facing us this week was to do a final workshop on each of the six drafts that everyone has produced so far, so that final revisions can be made. The apprentices are showing themselves to be gaining competence and confidence in this process every day. They are becoming quite sophisticated in making suggestions and in giving feedback that is positive yet which leaves room for change, improvement, and possibility.

In addition to this intense work, we visited the Central Library. After some browsing, each intern checked out a book and spent some time choosing a poem to practice reading aloud. Tiara and Savanna did some research on tips for both reading aloud and editing an anthology.

On Wednesday night we visited the Soul Fire reading at the Miramar Theater on north Oakland. The first hour and a half are for teens. We stayed from 7:30-10:00 and heard a variety of readers perform their poetry. Our own interns, Michael and Danielle, read from the work they've produced this summer. The next day we analyzed what made a good reading and did some practice with the poems each had chosen.

We are now ready as a group to select the poems from each intern for the chapbook anthology. Apprentices will continue to practice reading poetry aloud and to critique each other. We have also identified seven possible venues for our poetry reading, and each intern will call one of them next week with a list of questions. Soon, the group as a whole must decide where to hold our poetry reading!

Kathleen Dale
Lead Artist

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