Cranbrook. Day 1, Southern Leg
Posted by Karen Hofmann
Stephen and I talked to a group of grade 4-6 children at Pinewood Elementary, These kids had lots of good questions, and participated enthusiastically in poetry exercises. All wanted to know the name of the cat in the poem “Skewed” At the public library reading, a chic German woman told me that she enjoyed my reading, but couldn’t get her head around poems that don’t rhyme. I gave her the usual explanations about English not being rich in rhyming words (as compared for eg to German) and about the rise of Modernism in the first part of the 20th century. She agreed that the world had “come apart” during WW I, and said she could see how the social and political disintegration could change the form of poetry. I hope that Ursula will find a century of new poetry opening up for her now!
