TEACH LIKE A POET & POETIC GIFTING: LIBERATING METHODOLOGY IN COMMUNITY-ENGAGED ARTISTRY By William T. Langford IV A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Curriculum, Instruction, and Teacher Education—Doctor of Philosophy 2023 ABSTRACT Poetic gifting, a term coined here, is the process of sharing creative scholarship in an impactful and wide-reaching way. This dissertation project is a poetic gift, and a model for creative scholars who want to work in the academy and alongside communities and non-academic groups simultaneously. As a community-engaged teaching artist and poet, I aim to ensure that my work "takes the shape" of the scholar. As such, this hybrid project features works of poetry, visual art, QR codes that link to videos, and a concluding essay at the end. I have drawn on my experiences as an educator, artist, and global citizen to craft what you will experience here. This is a new model for ways that scholarship is generated and disseminated. My hope is that this project provides a vision for fruitful collaborations between creative scholars and the communities that matter to us and sustain us. PREFACE The poems in this collection are the product of my heartwork as a community-engaged teaching artist. When I say "community-engaged," I mean that I write, teach, and perform poetry in communities that I care for, and that care for me in return. These are occasion-making poems, meant to draw people closer to one another. This hybrid collection embraces the image, too, the beauty of place, and the inspiration I draw from living as an educator and lifelong student. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: TEACH LIKE A POET.....................................................................................1 CHAPTER 2: LIBERATING COMMUNITY ARTISTRY....................................................37 WORKS CITED................................................................................................................. ..53 iv CHAPTER 1: TEACH LIKE A POET Figure 1.0 "Spirits of Detroit" 6x6 Oil on Canvas 1 Unlearning To teach well I think I must keep unlearning the right way of doing things. In the moment I master the Tetris of seating 35 students in a classroom built for 20, I must acknowledge that maybe they could have chosen for themselves. To teach well, I must keep learning from my frustrations: not my ceasing, but by knowing what snaps my pencil, and facing it with grace if I can. 2 Schooled Figure 1.1 "Schooled" QR Code Scan this QR code watch a video performance of "Schooled" 3 Kiswahili Lessons Figure 1.2 "Kiswahili Lessons" Poem Written for The Shape of Us: Waterways and Movements Project (Imagining America) 4 A Letter to Teachers Forget everything you know and begin to learn the difficult and beautiful, the urgency in our work. Feel hope, remember our power to create a parallel world, sustain community, value love. Our being lights boundaries, disrupts them. 5 Pamoja (As One) Figure 1.3 "Pamoja" QR Code Scan this QR code watch a video performance of "Pamoja" Written for the Michigan State University Empower Extraordinary Campaign Celebration on October 19, 2018 at the Breslin Center in East Lansing, MI 6 Progenitors (For my Verses music students.) I know who'll sing my city's song of work of pride, I know who'll form the chorus that'll raise the tide Detroit's operetta lies before your eyes if you would but open your heart to hear it. Figure 1.4 VERSES Final Listening Party w/ Students & Family 7 Legion We come here to be a part of a legend. This land was granted for that purpose. A seed was sown, and Kinsley Bingham called us a college. We come here to be a part of a legend. Four years forth from gaining a four-year curriculum, Our Forefather Spartans marched into Civil War. We come here to be a part of a legend. Booker T. Washington commenced the class of 1900 and thousands upon thousands of days since… We are writing. If MSU teaches but one skill it is that, writing—scribing wildly into the future. It is written in the tremble of 46 thousand footsteps, it is written in classrooms— watch that professor sketch something epic-like I’ve seen equations like- Black and white like Poetry- sprawl like Fire bursts, bright against the bubble that says change is bad. We are the unstoppable force behind a moveable object— that being renewal that being progress. Press our passion into the point of a spade, and we will dig trenches at our feet, line them with language and pack them with prose, send this Spartan Legion marching in rows towards a dawn of shapelessness, and we will mold it into fraternity and we will mold it with mortar 8 into a road that begins here 61 thousand, 320 days into a legend we live, let us break ground like bread among us, that we might be remembered for a singular step forward. Written for/Performed at the Groundbreaking Ceremony for Wells Hall, Michigan State University 9 From the Hood to the Holler If the powers that be have blighted the bright spots that once were, then perhaps you'll begin the long walk to justice. And when your path is shrouded, traveler, you will alight from the hope that carries you to banish the doubt. For there are mountains ahead and valleys behind, a whole future, abounding, with reclaimed time. Written for the Capital City Film Festival Poetry Project 2022 Inspired By From the Hood to the Holler (Film) By Pat McGee 10 Uncommon Will Figure 1.5 "Uncommon Will" QR Code Scan this QR code watch a video performance of "Uncommon Will" 11 We Are Called (Spartan Nurses) Vocavit bellum: “Luscinia,” The war called, “Nightingale,” and as if by apparition, Florence arose to her calling, a profession arose in rows, closing ranks, to heal a legion in Crimea. Vocati sumus nutrire. We are called together, to nourish. The vocation we harken to speaks in our commitment to those for whom we care— from birth to death, we are stalwart. The vocation we harken to speaks in our capacity, built to burgeoning, teaching teachers to teach teachers to reach communities, to coax unity from disarray, to guide management from diagnoses. Our calling resounds in our preparation for practice, our anticipation of need, wrought by the praxis of bedside care, speaks in the breadth of our research, echoes from gerontology to epidemiology, decides that we can live fully at any age, turns the page 12 on medicine that treats only symptoms, trades the Cartesian for something more realistic, the holistic healing of the body. It echoes from the corridors of Giltner Hall to the cracked pavement of Leogane, Haiti. The humanitarian nurse practices mindfulness amidst the rubble. Our calling resounds In John Hannah’s bronzed footsteps Making strides for Civil Rights giving rise to the call to call us a College. A Spartan nurse does not simply materialize, white coat and pinned lapel, No, they are wrought, by the agoge of clinicals, by the rigor of lecture, through lessons of service. What we unearth here, what is honed with mindfulness, with care, moves us forward. We send it forth unto the world to nourish it. Vocati sumus. We are called. Spartan Nurses Answer. Written and Performed for the MSU College of Nursing Awards Convocation, 2017 13 Nexus (Mackinac Bridge) Figure. 1.6 "Nexus (Mackinac Bridge)" Original Poem + Photograph Written for/Exhibition in Poetic Visions of Mackinac Art Exhibition, Mackinac Island, MI 14 Maple City Nights (Glen Lake, MI) Glen Lake's narrow beach illuminated crescent holds its water close Boats at anchor list tossed joyfully by the surf like toys in a bath At the horizon the rise of a Sleeping Bear hides a resting sun. One rises at dawn the other awaits her cubs for eternity. Written & Performed at the Peninsula Writers Retreat, Glen Lake, MI 15 Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Figure 1.7 "Sleeping Bear Dunes" 8.5 x 11 Original Painting 16 Michigan Lakeshore, 1811 The Eureka and Bishop's crew were finally stocked with whale oil, backstrap, and as much fish as they could haul. They could never know that 211 years later, a magnet fisher in a paisley vest would reel in the remnants of Bishop's expedition on the shores of Glen Lake. They set sail for further shores than ever before: where every star is a lighthouse, beyond the turquoise seal that separates the cold from the frigid of the water. Written & Performed at the Peninsula Writers Retreat, Glen Lake, MI 17 Chef Michigan On a clear or cloudy day here, you can see for miles what makes us. The salt of the earth mined here makes meals and ends meet, makes Italy, Germany, Chicago & Detroit meet. The nexus of us may be that all our breads are broken and shared among friends, or whole & held close. Try our tortillas, our wheat, a steam-hot injera, or perhaps our matzah brie. We share culture in a meal, in our minds. When we make room for seconds. Figure 1.8 "Chef Michigan" Original Photo Written/Photographed for Poetic Visions of Mackinac Art Exhibition, Mackinac Island, MI 18 Making a Coney Dog, Detroit Style Naturally, you’ll use all-beef hotdogs, Koegel brand, so perfectly pink and plump. Fresh is a must, but any bun will do to swaddle this Detroit delicacy. Layer on beanless chili (a service to us all), with bumpy bits of spiced beef. Top with yellow onion’s ghost white insides, granules strewn like salt on an icy walk. Add a single stripe of yellow mustard for the purists; ketchup for the tourists. Nest in a hinged white clamshell container for the greasy take-out jewel inside. Of course, you’ll need a strong-stomached people. Find them waiting tables, schooling children. Figure 1.9 "Making a Coney Dog, Detroit Style" QR Code 19 Avatars We’ve made it! The future weighed us and found us packing love for our earth, its oceans its asylum seekers its meek and many weary, found us making music in the waking hours of tragedy forging art in back alleys, making amends for amendments late to the docket. Congratulations. We’re notorious for missing the forest for the trees. It is now your mission to ensure that we don’t miss the road for the digital milestones, miss the movement for the buckshot of tweets, scattering matter when what matters is a smattering of facts, splattered roughshod over one-hundred and forty characters. It verges on haiku: the art of saying so much and so little, so briefly. It is your sacred duty to ensure that we never forget the moment smartphones took the place of lighters at concerts where the bass was especially heavy. Make sure our next generation of iterations remembers the time when the word of mouth was the word and the word was good. I read that the volume of data on Wikipedia alone cannot be housed by any library of sensible size. 20 A veritable Alexandria stretches before our fingertips and yawns at our inability to contain it. I implore you to contain it, to write the word or speak it to not wait on change but to be it, to be more than avatars. Performed for The Fulbright Program Presents: An Evening of Poetry & Publicly Active Graduate Education (PAGE) Fellows Lightning Talk 21 Jesse Owens: A Poem for Trayvon Martin Jesse Owens won four medals in the 1936 Berlin Olympics: The 100 Meter, the 200 Meter, the 4 x 100 relay, and the long jump. For his winnings, they let Jesse walk in places Blacks back home are chased from not with hounds on heels now, but the wounds still fester, hang, like we did. Feel it now Trayvon laid low and the promise of forty acres to run feels hollow. Howl free black boys, free black girls writhing in this wasteland— Your dark skin frightens us. What do you do in the dark? 161,880 square meters to run runagate, renagatus runaway, fugitive run. Jesse, Trayvon, Owens, Martin, 22 run. The gun’s hammer is cocked, and you’re on the auction block starters’ block. Tray, Jesse, Owens, Martin martyred. When asked what his secret to success in the games was Jesse said, simply I let my feet spend as little time on the ground as possible. Jesse Owens jumped 26 feet (and eight inches). February 26th, Trayvon Martin is found dead in Sanford Florida. Mothers tuck us deep in the dark folds of your breast where their hounds can give no chase. Fathers you have made us strong, but now you must teach us to fly. 23 Dear City For the Phillip Morris smog the cigarette-tinged night sky that it will not turn loose and from this valley, these mountains, I cannot breathe you deeply, can’t brace my falls against your stump, your roots, deep and distant. We are reminded by the moniker our city will never shake: Motown. We are reminded by the earthy howl of dust and glass, winding through (the long abandoned) Central Station. We must, but no longer are steel, City. Can no longer bear, from this particular womb, such rugged fruit to feed our children. Dear City, I long for the sprawl of your interstate, green bridges’ steel ribcages, expanding with the breath of graffiti, sprawling, like exodus. Oh steel city, scraping Canada with your untamed borders, how I steal you in my dress: the twist of my cap— Honolulu blue lion roaring from its brim— with the sticker affixed. Oh steel city, oil slick, slipping from me. City I left. Oh steel city. 24 Shop Around I can’t help myself, I’m that stubborn kinda fellow when I’m alone I cry. I heard it through the grapevine, What’s going on? Trouble, man. Mary Wells is “shopping around for that Motown sound and so do we Marvelette the news on our doorsteps: that Detroit is finally on the rise, some Ford Falcon on cinder blocks, climbing through the ashes of the ghetto, a resurrection of our catalogue of woes, a rose-gold recollection of our greatest hits. The saints and the spinners would have you believe our hope died in the riots, the contours of our Bing Steel body misaligned by the fires, by the blight. The temptation’s to say Detroit sees new light in the Q-line, in suburban flight directly into our core, but you cannot remix and you cannot remaster Cass Corridor with erasure. This rare earth cannot be so easily purchased FedEx’d, signed, sealed, delivered to your doorstep. They forget we got that soul clap in our bones we got that Church-On-Every-Block Jesus. Please, Mr. Postman, deliver us some truth. Tell ‘em ‘bout Black Bottom: 25 how we bounce back from devastation like dandelions, gnarled and still shinin,’ Joe Louis on the ropes, gliding through shots to the body. THIS is the Motown Sound a supreme, three-part Copacabana cornucopia to uncloud your cornea and God is writing this album from the top down. We’re living for the city, we’re headed for higher ground. I’ve watched Detroit, thought drowned, thought derelict, thought defunct, rise like the Earl of Funk. Through our intellect, the eyes see, brothers, the miracles on every corner: Detroiters, hustlin’ harder, from the Check ‘N’ Go on Campau, to the wonder of young Stevie sound checking the Apollo. From bowls of beans to Beans Bowles fingertips building an Empire on the Boulevard, so my lady can go dancing in the streets, can click her heels three times in a warehouse brimming with enough mortar to brick back every barbershop, every black business cropped in the reaping, 26 so we can stand in the shadows of Motown, in the footsteps of Martin, marching down Woodward undeterred, toward something that feels like our dream undeferred, and bathe in the cool of Hughes. My lady no longer sings the blues, she is as fond as ever of your mahogany Detroit is the sound of young America hungry and full and hungry and full of music like tides the push and pull of our penance like tithes cast upon the plate glisten if you would but lend your ear to listen Written and Performed for the Motown Museum's Motown Mic: Spoken Word Artist of the Year Competition 27 Landbank This single-family fixer-upper is priced to move. Give it a few coats of eggshell— no, seashell— you know what? Let’s go with some nice artificial siding, there’s just no hiding the way a few decades of housing discrimination can ruin a perfectly good coat of paint. You know what? What say we scrap my finders-fee? While the crenellated moldings are the original mahogany, unfortunately, the community that gave this neighborhood its je ne sais quoi is not included in this listing. For full disclosure: We’re currently unable to provide your family with Black grannies in silk hats stacked with flowers. As such, the delegation will not be available to empower your testimonial of urban renewal with the requisite amen. No Rolls Royce Phantom will escort a teenager in a pink tuxedo and black Jordans to the prom. This is a peaceful community. No booms, and absolutely no baps will wake you from your beauty winks. No complicated daps with palms 28 slapping together like thunderclaps will be exchanged on your street corner. No inexplicable shirtless man on horseback, no creamsicle Camaro, no ice cream truck bumping trap music through metal bullhorns will parade on your block. Don’t you worry. In that moment after the streetlights click on you will not be disturbed by the cheers of buzzer beaters drained as the shot clock expires! or last touchdowns scored or the cacophony of mothers Pied Piper-ing their children home for the night. None of that. What you’re buying here isn’t a house. It is an investment in the future of this city, a home, someplace quiet. Figure 2.0 "Landbank" QR Code 29 200 Years of Black Art Figure 2.1 "200 Years of Black Art" Mixed Media Collage Debut: MSU Social Justice Art Festival 30 Belle River, Louisiana Here, on the bayou: Roots deeper than waters, harbors open to all walks. Levies are taxes in most places: same case here— the water’s knocking. No dam to hold it, no nurture from this nature, and we will remain. Got 400 years— Native, French, and Spanish too— of blood, here, and roots. Written for the Capital City Film Festival Poetry Project 2023 After Belle River (Short Film) By Guillaume Fournier 31 Luna Figure 2.2 "Luna" Original Poem + Painting 32 ‘Nam and After: William E. Langford III Young, with lead capped molars, his curling fro is close cropped, kept close, like many a revolutionary called up back then for exigent circumstances: to rumble in a jungle so far from his lover. I imagine the shouldery bulk of his 21-year-old body, lifting Kool to lips, reminded of the taste of peppermint candy, reminded of home in all that muck and sweat, all that green, pressing down, like the threat of night here. We grew close here, my father says of the Black grunts and the white grunts, No color on the battlefield. And after? I ask. I’ll tell you everything. We’re maimed, he says, 33 and there are no purple hearts for the after: it was not a decent time, he says. I believe him. I want to believe in war— in all the dirt and sand caked beneath the humvees, and the droning of tanks and the loading of M-16s and the slapping of backs and loading of packs, the mix of iron and oil in the air, the ping of spent shells, trickling onto pavement, the sticky sweet smell of chew, the steel plates in the mess hall and so far, far away, the politicians. I want to believe, from behind my school desk, that the war is far away, that the war is over for my Father. 34 Detroit: Exodus It is heavy, heavy, reeeal heavy and we’re back brother like barbershop crisp high-top fades and kicks in the barbed bosom of the city that harbored us hardened us and made us shine with smoke on its skyline tectonic plate-like shifting pavement and steel in its breath We’re on the I-75 I’m shotgun in your Chevy It is heavy, heavy, reeeal heavy We’re back brother Like Bob Marley’s “Exodus” is on wax and spinning in reverse calling us home home is where my heart is buried in a tar It is heavy, heavy, reeeal heavy like oil sands sweat glands pouring crude these rude boys and American girls dolls, addie-kink curls locked, cocked back and loaded goaded into entering the inviting night of my city’s rumbling belly It is heavy, heavy, reeeal heavy with Coney dogs and strip malls We’re back for both back from both coasts with pea coats and stubble and it’s different we’re older from here, of here Detroit bred here 35 and fed here but left here. . . We’re part of a generation that must take flight to fight our Reputation We are the Exodus, Yes and we will be the Genesis of a Detroit built of books and the bright crooked tooth smiles of children whose bright future will be no myth, brother Our evolution will be live and televised for those eyes cast askance live and televised for the fair-weather fans our winters are too harsh for you It is cold in the D and we’re tucked deep Southeast in the mitten It is fitting then that you fear what it is we do in the dark Hark, my burning lover calls my name So sip your wine, tourists Enjoy your casinos We’ve gone, but we’ll be back You’ve spent just enough time gambling to know you should always bet on black 36 CHAPTER 2: POETIC GIFTING: LIBERATING COMMUNITY ARTISTRY 37 In the spirit of creative scholarship recognized by the university, and drawing on arts - based research, my dissertation expands upon my first chapbook of poetry, Detroit: Workers, Teachers, Lovers by asking the question: What does it look like to use the arts to engage with communities that are important to me? What does it mean to be a community-engaged teaching artist, and how do I use my passion for the arts to fuel the work that I do in ways that are fulfilling and personally inspiring? These questions matter to educators, leaders of community organizations, and artists who want to engage with communities that are important to them. Similarly, this work holds potential for envisioning scholarly research differently. What might it look like for educators to make art while teaching the arts? My dissertation aims to answer these questions through the lens of my experiences as a poet and educator who happens to hail from Detroit, Michigan. When I say, "community-engaged," I mean that the work I do is rooted in my relationships to specific individuals, informal groups, and organizations that matter to me. These ties sustain me and help grow the work that I do. When I say "community," I am speaking broadly of the different academic, social, and artistic commun ities that I am a part of. Many of these communities are place-based, and closer to home for me, while others are further afield, such as my art/education work that focuses on youth in Kenya. The connecting threads between my work and these differing commu nities are woven with a spirit of reciprocity, and a genuine passion for the arts. That is to say, some of the most fruitful community-engagement experiences I have had have given me the chance to give back—as a poet and as an educator alike. I draw creative inspiration from Detroit's deep well of musical talent, and so I am drawn to the community of artists and organizers who keep that legacy alive today at the 38 Motown Museum. The Motown Museum hosts guests from around the world and close to home in the same studios where legends like Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, and The Funk Brothers made musical magic. The Motown Museum also pays homage to the label's track record of recording spoken word artists such as Langston Hughes, and Margaret Danner in the form of its spoken word competition, Motown Mic: The Spoken Word. In 2017, I toured the Motown Museum, and inspired by what I experienced, I wrote a poem entitled, "Shop Around," which reflects on narratives surrounding Detroit's resurgence. I went on to win the title "Motown Mic: Spoken Word Artist of the Year" with my performance of "Shop Around" at Detroit's Garden Theater. I remember standing in front of the crowd of 500 Detroiters of all walks of life like it was yesterday. It felt especially good to recite the lines, Tell 'em about Black Bottom, how we bounce back from devastation like dandelions gnarled, and still shining, Joe Louis on the ropes, gliding through shots to the body to an audience who truly understood the feeling of being counted down and counted out—only to rise to the occasion when it matters most. It is a uniquely Detroit story that I love to tell, because it educates, and because it celebrates the power of storytelling. A stage, big or small, can catapult a piece of art to new heights and purposes. I have been fortunate enough to share "Shop Around" with audiences around the world, in the form of my live performances, videos, and the publication of my first book of poetry, Detroit: Workers, Teachers, Lovers. 39 I have also passed on my knowledge of poetry and performance to youth in Motown Museum's Spark Day Camp for middle-school students exploring careers in music and songwriting, Michigan State University's VERSES: Exploring Literacy Through Lyrics & Song Program, and across the city of Detroit, at a host of educational institutions. This is to say that my work as a poet often leads to new opportunities and epiphanies as an educator. There is a symbiosis of sorts to the community and academic projects that I choose. I ask myself, "How can my creative practices inform the scholarly work that I do in classrooms and with communities? 40 Poetic Inquiry as Methodology Poet-scholars such as Natalie Loveless (2019) identify this mode of scholarship as "research creation", where scholarship takes the shape of the scholar. As a Black scholar and poet, I am excited to tell my story with poetry, and to point to new, liberating ways to engage in scholarship. Loveless describes this liberation in her description of research creation: “[...] a relatively new turn on the art-academic stage, gives those of us operating as artist-researchers/researcher-artists the opportunity to re- envision and re-craft—to re-story—our practices and labor, and, perhaps most importantly, our pedagogy, within university ecologies.” (p. 27) This project speaks to the ways that I connect with my community through poetry, as well as the scholarly implications of poetic methodologies in and outside of classrooms. As an educator, I aim to help my students tell their own stories and grow their confidence in doing so. I celebrate my students' creative growth, and I show my respect for who they are, and what they know. As an artist, I aspire to create art that is easily accessible, authentic to my lived experiences, inspiring, and educational. From a methodological standpoint, I collect ethnographic notes from different artistic, educational, and social spaces, or participatory learning communities that I am a part of, as well as photographs, and personal reflections as I seek inspiration for my creative writing. Poems that I create from relevant workshops, prompts, and with inspiration from experiences in these communities are a major part of this work. Fisher (2005) identifies "Participatory Literacy Communities (PLCs) as those which are organized around aspects of literacy such as spoken word poetry, open mic events, bookstore events, writers' collectives, and book clubs." Participatory Literacy 41 Communities hold as idiomatic that literacy is critical, a social practice, and learned through social participation. (p. 117-118) The poets, Motown Museum staff, and regular attendees of the Motown Mic: The Spoken Word competition provides a superb example of a participatory literacy community where I take on roles as an artist/performer and roles as an educator. There are several ways that I approach poetic inquiry as a writer. Let's use "Belle River, Louisiana" (p. 33), a poem I composed after screening the film Belle River (2023) by Guillaume Fournier as an artist participating in the Capital City F ilm Festival Poetry Project. First, I might ask, what strong impression I have from my experience? During the screening, I took a few notes on elements of the film that struck me: the strength of a community living through a recurring natural disaster, and the ways that culture can resist erasure. We hear that spirit of resistance in the lines: No dam to hold it, no nurture from this nature, and we will remain. After the film screening, I made a point to learn more about the Belle River community and its history, by watching related documentaries and gleaning what I could from recent news articles. There is often room to combine background research with the experiential when engaging in poetic inquiry. I learned that the people of Belle River, Louisiana are largely of creole descent, and have resided on their land for centuries: Got 400 years— Native, French, and Spanish too— of blood, here, and roots. The influence of that research on the resulting poem depends on the poem, writerly 42 intention, and or course, inspiration. Writers engaged in poetic inquiry take different pathways to crafting finished poems. Guiding questions I ask myself in the process also include: what do I want to share with others who have/have not experienced/seen the subject of the poem, what questions do I have about the subject of the poem based on my experience, and how can I show a new side of a familiar subject? This mode of scholarship, poetic inquiry, holds great possibilities for connecting with communities and classrooms in ways that challenge traditional notions of scholarship. Poet scholars have a growing tradition of working in schools and connecting with students through creative writing, open mic events, and poetry slams. Poetic inquiry presents opportunities for scholars to learn by creating poetry, through teaching poetry, and reflecting on that process—all in equal measure. Helen Owton (2017) speaks to the power of poetic inquiry as a [...] a ‘revitalizing and galvanizing mode of thought for humanistic study and teaching, making available means of engaging with and producing texts that are both very fresh and steeped in poetic tradition. (p. 10) This is to say that while the concept of poetry as scholarly methodology might strike one as novel or new, the art form itself is rooted in ancient literary tradition. Poets have always sought to understand the world around them, and to create meaning through an exploration of what is and what could be. Poetry can distill meaning from perspective, reflection, and experience. Poetry crafts probing questions that can guide us toward new discoveries. Poetry is rooted in Western scholarly tradition as well. Language and literacy education scholar Dr. Kedrick James (2017) notes that the first instance of the term poetic inquiry occurs in a 1921 edition of the Bookman Journal, wherein Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson reviews the novel A Child's Garden of Verses, writing, 43 "Of writing for "love of lovely words” the book holds little, but something of that great spirit of poetic inquiry that was Milton's and Browning's there undoubtedly is. (p. 23)" Stevenson points to the capacity of poetry to examine the subject in a way that expands our understanding. He writes that "the spirit of poetic inquiry, fulfilled by this love of words, can aspire to grow a tree of knowledge. So it is that poets meet the academy on different paths—as agrarians, as mystics, as magical adepts working with the energies of texts to discover the hidden jewels of non-literal comprehension." (p. 24) These "jewels of non-literal comprehension" represent the myriad of ways that poetic methodologies explore uncharted academic territory. Poetic inquiry is a tool for understanding the world around us through the lens of creative discourse, in civic, educational and social spaces alike. The art and poetry featured in this collection are demonstrative of my passion for poetry, education, and community-building. In the same way that this collection features ekphrastic poems (poems that respond to works of visual art/photography). I also teach my students to draw inspiration from the beauty of the world around them. As a member of the Peninsula Writers group, I recently led poets in a writing workshop in which I drew a series of images, and then encouraged writers to insert their own short story/poem into the margin. Participants delighted in imagining what the "Vend-o- Matic"—a magical vending machine might dispense. Others selected an image of a phone battery with 80% power and crafted all manners of tech-related comedies of errors. I was thrilled to see the artists embracing the opportunity to think of the ways that words and images interplay and the way that creating one type of art, such as a painting or photograph can give us inspiration to create another type of art, like a poem or a short story. Throughout this collection, I draw on inspiration from my travels in 44 order to craft poems that have a rich sense of place. Several of the poems in this collection are directly inspired by the site of the Peninsula Writers Conference, including "Michigan Lakeshore, 1811" and "Unlearning". I aim to show creatives and educators that they can and should draw creative inspiration from their lived experiences, and the beauty and uniqueness of the world around them. Through poetry and visual art, I have chronicled my journey as a Spartan, Detroiter, and lifelong learner. At the same time, I have inspired and educated potential students and those long faithful to MSU, with poems that reflect on the university's traditions, and the transformative power of unity and higher education , such as "Uncommon Will". In the classroom, I have used poetry to inspire students to tell their stories, with confidence and clarity. My hope is that those who read this collection feel inspired to connect with their own community organizations, in ways that feel authentic and self-sustaining. I hope this collection inspires educators to continue creating art while they sow seeds of knowledge through the work we do in our classrooms. Poetry is with me on the page, the stage, and the classroom. I know that when I tell my story through poetry publications & performances, and teach spoken word to groups of students, I promote authentic, humanizing interactions, and amplify voices from communities that I support, and that support me in turn. As the Lead Language Arts Instructor for the VERSES Project at the MSU Community Music School, Detroit, I led youth in a weekly open-mic that welcomed all genres of art, from trumpet solos to sonnet recitations. I taught students my own tools of memorization: to recite their poems again and again, until they could perform them without error—returning to the beginning after each mistake—or to record themselves and play back the audio until it was second nature. Students, including those poet/scholar Dr. Janine Certo's (2018) Averil Elementary 45 Poetry Project (where I served as a poet and guest lecturer) noted that "memorization and movement honored their subjects more than reading from the page" (105). These are lessons that students learn directly from my teaching, and also indirectly from my own memorized spoken word performances. In the early weeks of Verses, I reminded students to support their peers as an audience: to focus their attention on the performer, and to listen with empathy, or to snap their fingers in moments of poems they especially like (so as not to drown out the sound of the performer's voice). By the end of our semester together, the group developed its own culture and traditions for enlivening the space. The room was filled with supportive cheers and fingersnaps. When a student struggled with a solo performance of a song, a peer would join in to make it a duet. When younger students were nervous, I witnessed older students take on the role of peer mentor. Moments of great bravery and vulnerability became a beautiful norm in my work with the dynamic group of Detroit-area teens in the Verses program. For poets like myself, tradition manifests in the dynamism of poetry slams and open mics—both of which carry with them the legacies of orality, of griots and the art and power of storytelling. Maisha Fisher's (2003) study of African Diaspora Participatory Literacy Communities affirms this idea. She speaks to the tradition of sharing poetry aloud, noting the commonality that "open mic venues have varying rules of engagement, but a permanent commandment across venues is for the audience to listen with an open mind "(p. 365). Creating spaces that support active and open listening lay the groundwork for examining the impact of spoken word poetry. My Verses students expanded their Critical Literacy (Wray, 2006) skills by analyzing the lyrics to popular songs, like the theme song for The Fresh Prince of Bel- 46 Air, which I recited from childhood memory. Students noted how the regular pattern of rhymes (In West Philadelphia/born and raised/On the playground is where I spent/most of my days) made the lyrics almost impossible to forget. Through this example, I also taught my students that their own lived experiences were great areas to explore when brainstorming topics for poems and songs. In the summer of 2018, a Verses Student Band known as The Voyce demonstrated that they took these lessons to heart in the debut of their original song, "The Right Lens": When you end up reviewing your past mistakes Will you fight till the end and do what it takes? If you need to sit down and take a look around to hear the sweet sound, then I'm down. The songwriters delight in the use of end rhyme, in parallel with the Smith example. There's an element of memorability because of the consistency of the rhymes, and the familiar, conversational tone. Similarly, these lyrics indicate that the authors are engaging in critical self-reflection: students looked to their own lived experiences as the subject matter for their songs. There is also an important emphasis on sharing and listening to one another's stories, as individuals, and as a community. I saw that students want their stories to be told and remembered. This is essential to the work that I do as a community-engaged teaching artist: I create spaces that encourage authentic self-expression and empathetic listening. 47 Poetry is an occasion-making art form that manifests poetry slams, writers clubs, moments of protest, and more. Poems in this collection have featured in Michigan State University ground breaking and commencement ceremonies ("Legion" and "We Are Called", respectively) and Welcome Week events for newly admitted students, as well as community art exhibitions, such as Poetic Visions of Mackinac ("Nexus" and "Chef Michigan") and the Capital City Film Fest ("From the Hood to the Holler") in Lansing. Poetry has a profound ability to inspire critical hope–"which boldly stands in solidarity with urban communities, sharing the burden of their undeserved suffering as a manifestation of a humanizing hope in our collective capacity for healing" (Duncan - Andrade, p.190). This critical hope is one display in my "Spartans Will" suite of poems, including "Uncommon Will", "Pamoja", and "Schooled". Each of these poems explores the rigor of academia and the potential it holds for self-empowerment and community building. In "Schooled", I encourage students to conjure hope from their uniqueness, to take on the challenge of higher education: You penciled in a chat with your mother which begat the fear that you’re out of your depth which begat something nasty deep in your chest. . . You can expel it. You are wanted here. You are different. These chains are begging to be broken. We’re choking on the dust of indifference but we’re spitting back our insistence that coexistence is not enough. 48 Critical hope asks us to consider what is possible and what stands in our way. This critical hope is essential for students navigating institutions of higher education. I am especially proud of the opportunity to inspire students of color, marginalized students, and everyone who believes in the grand project at work in our colleges and universities. My work as a community-engaged artist links theory, action, and practice—one of the core principles of the MSU College of Teacher Education. I make art and teach students to make every day. I am an improved practitioner at both as a result. This collection holds potential for fellow community-engaged teaching artists, as an academic exploration of what it means to do this work in ways that are personally sustaining, while engaging in on-going critical self-reflection. Educators with a love of literacy will learn from this creative dissertation project, which explores themes including: connecting across boundaries, the connection between visual art and the written word, and the role of language, culture, and art in strengthening community ties. 49 Poetic Gifting The notion of poetic gifting is at the heart of this work. These poems have lived and breathed through my live performances and publication. Because I am a practicing creative scholar, I embrace the opportunity to share my work widely, with non -academic and academic audiences alike, in dynamic formats. This work provides guideposts for ways that poet-scholars and public scholars can disseminate their art and scholarship in order to that are excite, reach far flung groups, and engage with communities and organizations that matter to them. For example, I traveled to the Mission Point Hotel Mackinac Island to debut two original ekphrastic poems, "Chef Michigan" and "Nexus", as a part of an intergenerational art exhibition. The poems celebrate ways Michiganders bond over food and group projects (respectively). The pieces remain on display for visitors to the from all over the world to enjoy as inspiration and poetic gifts. I am also a frequent participant in poetry slams and poetry readings, such as my live performance of "Schooled" and other poems from Detroit: Workers, Teachers Lovers at the RCACH Theater—a free event for all. Poetic gifting embraces opportunities to celebrate communal achievements too—like the work of researchers and students at MSU's Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, as referenced in my original poem and performance of "Pamoja" at the MSU Breslin Center: So we harken back to seeds planted in this land granted the promise to flourish, to manifest the rarest dreams of isotope beams and 50 trilling strings in a sprawling pavilion. Our carillon’s calling Spartans to new missions These "new missions" are the call to envision the ways that we can use our gifts to give back to people and places that nurture us. "Pamoja" (a Kiswahili word meaning "as one") is a poetic gift to Michigan State University, as a part of its Empower Extraordinary Campaign. It celebrates the power of unity, generosity, and higher education—to help us dream boldly, and manifest those dreams into reality. In addition to writing and performing this poem for attendees at the Empower Extraordinary event, I also worked with Michigan State University to creat e an original video performance of Pamoja, and an online publication of the poem, with embedded hyperlinks to relevant references from the piece. Poetic gifting also entails seeking out opportunities to share my poetry and scholarship in such a way that it reaches the hands of folks in my community directly, and in as many far-reaching formats as I can manage. Poetry is meant to be read aloud and listened to, and I embrace that belief while increasing access to my scholarship by performing and recording m y work. Poems in this collection that are intended to be listened to/watched live include QR (Quick Response) Codes, which link to video performances. Ideally, this will speak to the variety of ways that people enjoy consuming poetry, be it by reading it aloud themselves, or listening to the artist's rendition. Moreover, this video content is intended to be shared further via URL, in digital spaces, with the distinct advantage of being freely available on the web. I utilize QR codes in Detroit: Workers, Teachers, Lovers for the same purposes: to expand the reach and impact of my work. 51 The poetic gifts in this project have already made their way into the hands of thousands of people in communities I live and work alongside. Recently, I joined the Editorial Board of Riverwise Magazine, a publication dedicated to engaging Detroiters civically and creatively through educational outreach and commu nity projects. As an editor and contributor to the magazine, I have serialized the publication of poems and images from this collection, including: "Kiswahili Lessons", "Dear City", and "Nexus (Mackinac Bridge)" in individual issues of Riverwise Magazine. "200 Years of Black Art" (my entry from the MSU Social Justice Art Festival) served as the rear cover art for summer issue XIX. Each issue of Riverwise reaches up to 30,000 individuals within the distribution network. This means that poems in this collection have already reached nearly 100,000 people in Michigan—free of charge. This matters so much because it holds potential for conceiving of scholarship differently, and incorporating local media, such as newspapers and magazines into the slate of academic journals and periodicals where academic work is typically found. Ideally, scholars will should consider what skill sets we hold, and ways that we can gift our skills and creative talents to the communities that matter to us. I feel like this engenders a scholarly and creative reciprocity that holds great potential for growing closer ties between creative educators/educational institutions, and the communities in which they are situated. 52 WORKS CITED Certo, Janine. (2019). Children writing poems: Poetic voices in and out of school. Routledge. Duncan-Andrade, J. (2009). Note to educators: Hope required when growing roses in concrete. Harvard educational review, 79(2), 181-194. Fisher, Maisha T.: Writing in Rhythm: Spoken Word Poetry in Urban Classrooms. (2007). School Library Journal, 53(10), S78. Fisher, M. T. (2005). From the Coffee House to the School House: The Promise and Potential of Spoken Word Poetry in School Contexts. English Education, 37(2), 115–131. Fisher, Maisha T. "Open Mics and Open Minds: Spoken Word Poetry in A frican Diaspora Participatory Literacy Communities." Harvard Educational Review, vol. 73, no. 3, 2003, pp. 362-389. Loveless, N. (2019). How to Make Art at the End of the World. Duke University Press. Owton, H. (2017). Doing Poetic Inquiry. [electronic resource] (1st ed. 2017.). Springer International Publishing. Sameshima, P., Fidyk, A., James, K., & Leggo, C. (2017). Poetic Inquiry: Enchantment of Place. Vernon Press. Voyce, The. "The Right Lens". Original Lyrics & Audio by Verses Students. Summer 2018. Wray, D. (2006). Developing critical literacy: a priority for the 21st century. Journal of Reading, Writing and Literacy, 1(1), 19-34. 53