Snow in Baton Rouge?

In Baton Rouge, we write snow poems sitting on a concrete floor while eating fresh Satsuma oranges. After some free-writing about our memories of snow, twelve LSU students and local poets sit in a circle, feeding our images to each other. Edie stands in the middle conducting us: she points to a poet who responds with a phrase. She points to another poet. Back and forth we go. Edie has us repeat our words, speak them back and forth to each other. It is a game, a performance piece, a warm up to working together. In small groups, we craft communal snow poems from our stories…I leave with a handful of oranges, my carpool companions still speaking to me in poems. We decide nothing can bother us,  because, as Baton Rouge poet Bryston Marshall says, “I’ve got words on a window.”

~ Penelope Dane
December 2013

 

Snow Poems traveled to Louisiana State University this December 2-6, 2013, where Edie Tsong gave a poetry workshop, a talk on Radical Bookmaking, and lead volunteers in installing poems at LSU’s Glassell Gallery in downtown Baton Rouge. Thank-you to everyone who participated!