A professor and her student’s poetry collaboration is now published and available for purchase.
Kate Brennan, associate professor of voice and acting, and her student Corinne Prudente, acting senior, released their book, “elevated thoughts: 100 shadormas from 9,000 ft.,” on Nov 30. Brennan wrote the poetry, Prudente created all illustrations and Brennan composed music to accompany the poetry.
“Every year, I’ve gone to Creede, Colorado for the National Winter Playwrights Retreat, and there I help the playwrights free their writing voices,” Brennan said.
Brennan said she uses the work of Kristin Linklater, a pioneer in her own acting and voice technique, to free the playwrights’ voices. She also uses Linklater when teaching acting students, in the Vocal Production for the Actor class.
“I use haikus with them, but I also use other forms of poetry,” Brennan said. “One of them is a form called shadorma; it feels a little bit like a cousin to the haiku.”
Shadormas are Spanish in origin. Each stanza in this form uses six lines; the first with three syllables, the second with five, the third with three, the fourth with three, the fifth with seven, and the sixth with five.
Brennan said in order to more effectively teach, she explored shadormas further while working in Creede a couple of years ago. She set a goal for herself to write 100 while in Creed, and she accomplished it.
“I guess what was most inspiring is that Creede was a really small town,” Brennan said. “I grew up in Philadelphia. Even Oklahoma City feels like a burgeoning city compared to Creed. The quiet you have from that kind of snow in that kind of town is so deafening it almost forces you to look inward.”
Brennan said she saw Prudente’s illustrations at the end of the term in which Prudente took her class. In Vocal Prod, the student picks something they are curious about, and they explore the topic and applications of it for months, with all their work culminating in a “Curiosity Project.”
Prudente’s Curiosity Project was an illustrated journal. Brennan said she was interested in Prudente’s work.
“I thought about her pictures and how interesting and dark and funny they were,” Brennan said.
Prudente said Brennan contacted her the following summer and asked her to illustrate the book.
“My first thought had to be that it’s a project I absolutely had to be involved in,” Prudente said. “The poems are incredible, with such vivid imagery; I couldn’t imagine not pursuing that because that imagery is just so clear and lends itself so well to this. There’s just a lot of life and also humor in it, and there’s just something so unique and touching in it when you read them.”
The book is published with Literati Press.
“They are a local bookstore and publishing company in OKC,” Prudente said. “They are a really great bookstore. They really encourage artists to try new things and to work with them. They host an ink and draw session that I go to every Sunday. It’s a really cool partnership between publisher and artist.”
At 7:00 p.m. on April 16, Paseo Plunge, a multipurpose art space, will host a listening session.
“We’re going to make the book a live experience,” Brennan said. “We’re going to involve all sorts of things. It’s going to be like a Fringe of the book.”
Prudente said the book released on Nov. 30 as part of a shop local event which encourages local artists and small businesses.
“This project has changed things majorly for me,” Prudente said. “It was the first time I’d ever had a professor actively encourage me to do something that wasn’t acting. It was a really remarkable reminder that I could have other interests and develop other skills. That’s not a distraction to pursue those other interests; it’s something that makes me a well-rounded human being and a better artist as a whole.”
Brennan said one of the most interesting aspects of this project is that, in a way, it was her Curiosity Project. She said one thing kept leading to another with shadormas, followed by illustrations, followed by musical accompaniment.
“I feel like it has the opportunity to be multisensory, ergodic storytelling,” Brennan said. “It has to do with putting the pieces together yourself. It has the opportunity to stimulate multiple senses, and then you, as the reader, have the opportunity to create something of your own.”
“elevated thoughts” is on sale through Literati Press Bookshop and the Ignition Arts website.
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