What is a Poem?
-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on April 4, 2024
‘What is a poem?’ That was the first question a Springhouse Community student asked at a class where students where gifted with copies of Artemis Journal, a Floyd-based yearly journal that features writers and artists from the Blue Ridge Mountains and beyond.
Artemis founder and editor, Jeri Rogers, outlined the history of the journal, which began in 1977 with a social justice theme. She introduced the journal’s newly formed Dragonfly Project, an outreach that partners with various arts organizations to help spread the word about the significant impact that the arts and the written word make on our society.
“Working with high school students, our Dragonfly Project encourages first-time young writers and artists to submit their work for consideration in the journal,” Rogers said.
Last year, the Dragonfly Project donated a box of journals to students of poet Michele Evans, an English teacher in Loudon County, Virginia. Evans, a published poet in last year’s journal, is working to encourage her students to write and submit their work to Artemis, which features Poet Laureates, alongside first-time published poets.
Rogers explained that Artemis 2024’s theme is Illuminating the Darkness and that the issue, which is currently in production, will be launched at the Taubman Museum of Art in September. The theme for the 2025 issue is “Home.”
Local Poets Katherine Chantal and Colleen Redman read a selection of their published poems in past journals and shared their process of writing poems with the class. Chantal spoke of sipping tea with a sharpened pencil in hand and of her love of books and of philosophy, sociology, psychology and neuroscience.
Redman described her writer’s style as “nutty professor,” working from a notebook and off scraps of paper, and dropping anything she is doing when a line pops in her head. “The muse of my inner life has an authority I can’t ignore. I write to know what I’m thinking and feeling,” she said.
A student read a poem by renowned poet and longtime professor at VA Nikki Giovanni, who has been involved in Artemis as a contributor and as guest speaker at journal launches. Springhouse teacher Sarah Piper facilitated the reading of a group-created poem made up of one line from each student. Some students participated online.
What is a poem? “You would get a different answer from each poet you ask,” Chantal said, adding that she believes that writing poetry is a form of soul work. – Colleen Redman
– Note: Visit https://springhouse.org to learn more about Springhouse, an intergenerational, vitality-centered learning community.