Book Group Reflection
In reflecting back on the book group presentations and experiences, I am glad that I was able to read the book that I read. One of the reasons why I recommended What To Eat, What To Drink, What To Leave For Poison is that I was interested in introducing poetry to the class. I had also been mesmerized when the author, Camille Dungy, came to Bryn Mawr to do a poetry reading and talk. The ways in which she talked about her poetry and the necessity of black poets really resonated with me.
I was also trying to challenge myself in the kinds of reading I was doing. I’ve always found it hard to read and understand poetry, but through reading this book, I felt like I was able to understand the individual pieces. I connected with the poetry on personal levels in some instances; there were some that I found to be more comical, and there were ones that I found to be very vivid and nature focused. I was particularly drawn to to poems “In His Library” and “Language.” “Language” stood out to me because the first word in the poem was ‘silence’ and I oftentimes find that we value the spoken words (as well as the written in academia) but hardly do we take delight in the quiet or silent moments. I’m not sure what led me to loving “In His Library” but the line, “What good has Springfield ever done me anyway?” always stands out to me when I read that poem.
Through reading this book, my group was able to draw connections to course materials and also have a presentation that wasn’t a typical lecture style. We were very intentional in having different modes for people to be able to express their understanding on the stanza of the final poem that they read. I think that the poem called for many different types of representations and seeing what each group came up with was amazing. Overall I enjoyed being able to read this book and discuss it with classmates and I hope that in the next years when this class is offered, that students are interested in bringing in poetry to the classroom.