1. Engendering Poetic Self-expression: “There’s an App for that!”
NCTE , Orlando
J. Gregory McVerry
W. Ian O’Byrne
Sue Ringler Pet
K. Scott Myers
University of Connecticut

2. Kay Ryan, Poet Laureate

3. Poetry Collections

4. Bait Goat by Kay Ryan There is a But watch out: distance where
roving packs can
magnets pull,
pull your word
we feel, having
away. You
held them
find your stake
back. Likewise
yanked and some
there is a
rough bunch
to thank.
words attract.
Set one out
like a bait goat
and wait and
seven others
will approach.
1. Metaphor: words – magnets -- orange
2. Consonance: stake-yanked- thank… green
3. Rhyme- blue

5. Rhyme and Repetition
“ Much of her poetry rhymes, for God’s sake, something almost no one’s does anymore. Her rhymes are ‘recombinant’ — that is, as she has put it, they tend to be stashed ‘at the wrong ends of lines and at the middles.’” ~New York Times, March, 2010~

6. The Best of It by Kay Ryan
However carved up or pared down we get, we keep on making the best of it as though it doesn’t matter that our acre’s down to a square foot. As though our garden could be one bean and we’d rejoice if it flourishes, as though one bean could nourish us.
1. Repetition – orange
2. Rhyme - green

7. “You could almost tweet them”
“Kay Ryan’s poems are as slim as runway models, so tiny you could almost tweet them. Their compact refinement, though, does not suggest ease or chic. Her voice is quizzical and impertinent, funny in uncomfortable ways, scuffed by failure and loss. Her mastery, like Emily Dickinson’s, has some awkwardness in it, some essential gawkiness that draws you close.”
~New York Times, March, 2010~

8. Home to Roost by Kay Ryan The chickens are circling and
blotting out the
day. The sun is
bright, but the
chickens are in
the way. Yes,
the sky is dark
with chickens,
dense with them.
They turn and
then they turn
again. These
are the chickens
you let loose
one at a time
and small—
various breeds.
Now they have
come home
to roost—all
the same kind
at the same speed.

9. Crocodile Tears By Kay Ryan
The one sincere
crocodile has
gone dry eyed
for years. Why
bother crying
crocodile tears.

10. Twit poem Tweet Kay Ryan excerpt
Which is it?
Twit poem Tweet Kay Ryan excerpt
#twitpoem

11. Tweet The day is sun-scorched, the shadows thin and dry,
as though a gust of wind would scatter them
like so many burnt pages

12. #twitpoem
My eyes slip on twin dresses drawing lashes over curves. Soon they'll dance the night away while I dream of you

13. Kay Ryan from “Tenderness and Rot”
share a border.
And rot is an
aggressive neighbor
whose iridescence
keeps creeping over.

14. Tweet
Point being that some classes won't respond to self-generated rules, touching, whispers, breath-holding, gentle words. Then what?

15. Tweet I speak out, and sometimes shout, and sometimes scream,
for those who have been silenced.

16. Kay Ryan from “Carrying a Ladder “
We are always
really carrying
a ladder, but it’s
invisible. We
only know
something’s
the matter:
something precious
crashes; easy doors
prove impassable.

17. #twitpoem
Cinnamon on cappuccino foam, soft footsteps on new fallen snow.

18. Write your own Twitter-inspired poem (140 characters, including spaces)
Express yourself on the subject of cats, or use “cat” as metaphor…
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

19. Sound
His tail snakes. He circles and circles again. Twitch. He hesitates, then settles round and close. His motor hums. Then, again, a tiny tap steals him, sleek and slim.

20. A Cat/A Future by Kay Ryan
A cat can draw the blinds behind her eyes whenever she decides. Nothing alters in the stare itself but she's not there. Likewise a future can occlude: still sitting there, doing nothing rude.

21. Student Self-expression Through Mutimodal Response

22. Digital Mash-Ups

23. INTERTEXTrEVOLUTION

24. Chronotope

25. Transmediation

26. Transmediation

27. Sharks' Teeth by Kay Ryan
Everything contains some
silence. Noise gets
its zest from the
small shark's-tooth
shaped fragments
of rest angled
in it. An hour
of city holds maybe
a minute of these
remnants of a time
when silence reigned,
compact and dangerous
as a shark. Sometimes
a bit of a tail
or fin can still
be sensed in park

30. Flamingo Watching by Kay Ryan
Wherever the flamingo goes,
she brings a city’s worth
of furbelows. She seems
unnatural by nature—
too vivid and peculiar
a structure to be pretty,
and flexible to the point
of oddity. Perched on
those legs, anything she does
seems like an act. Descending
on her egg or draping her head
along her back, she’s
too exact and sinuous
to convince an audience
she’s serious. The natural elect,
they think, would be less pink,
less able to relax their necks,
less flamboyant in general.
They privately expect that it’s some
poorly jointed bland grey animal
with mitts for hands
whom God protects.

32. Turtle by Kay Ryan
Who would be a turtle who could help it? A barely mobile hard roll, a four-oared helmet, She can ill afford the chances she must take In rowing toward the grasses that she eats. Her track is graceless, like dragging A packing-case places, and almost any slope Defeats her modest hopes. Even being practical, She’s often stuck up to the axle on her way To something edible. With everything optimal, She skirts the ditch which would convert Her shell into a serving dish. She lives Below luck-level, never imagining some lottery Will change her load of pottery to wings. Her only levity is patience, The sport of truly chastened things.

34. A Cat/A Future by Kay Ryan
A cat can draw the blinds behind her eyes whenever she decides. Nothing alters in the stare itself but she's not there. Likewise a future can occlude: still sitting there, doing nothing rude.

35. Student Empowerment Through Multimodal Response

36. Empowerment & Activism
…empowering individuals who are disenfranchised by taking control over their own learning and developing a deeper understanding of one’s own position within a community through active participation and engagement (Friere, 1972)
Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1972/1986), Freire

37. Empowerment & Activism
Activism in literacy can enhance the work-product with authenticity and increase the author’s attention to audience. When authentically embedded into a critical literacy framework, activism allows the student to become an “active viewer” and empower himself or herself (Davis, 1993; Tapscott, 1999; Brown, 2000; Oblinger, 2004; Kellner & Share, 2005)
Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1972/1986), Freire

38. Engendering Poetic Self-expression: “There’s an App for that!”
Students study the work of Kay Ryan, poet laureate
Students work with twitpoems and write their own pieces
Students complete an Internet inquiry project and search online to find other poets, poems, or twitpoems that speak to them
Students create video/photo mashups of other Kay Ryan poems and twitpoems
Students use their cellphones or other media capture devices to collect images from their “worlds” that express what they see in the poems provided by the teacher

39. Student Empowerment Using Poetry & Multimodal Response
A Cat/A Future by Kay Ryan
A cat can draw the blinds behind her eyes whenever she decides. Nothing alters in the stare itself but she's not there. Likewise a future can occlude: still sitting there, doing nothing rude.

40. Student Empowerment Using Poetry & Multimodal Response

41. Student Empowerment Using Poetry & Multimodal Response

42. Student Empowerment Using Poetry & Multimodal Response

43. Engendering Poetic Self-expression: “There’s an App for that!”
NCTE , Orlando
J. Gregory McVerry
W. Ian O’Byrne
Sue Ringler Pet
K. Scott Myers
University of Connecticut