January 7-14, 1982
Artists cannot deal with the simple business side of life including filling out forms, earning a living, and relating normally to people around them, Fact or fiction? How many people buy the myth?
Poet Katharine Harer, Sebastopol resident and native of the Bay Area, is the Statewide Coordinator for California Poets-in-the-Schools, and she very much disproves the myth that all artists are incapable of surviving in the 20th century.
In an interview, she debunks the myth entirely. She began teaching in Poets-in-the-Schools in 1978 and rapidly moved forward into the position of Office Administrator; in 1981, she was nominated the Statewide Coordinator for the entire program.
CPITS had its beginnings at San Francisco State University in 1964 and was spawned out of a writing program called the Pegasus
Artists cannot deal with the simple business side of life including filling out forms, earning a living, and relating normally to people around them, Fact or fiction? How many people buy the myth?
Poet Katharine Harer, Sebastopol resident and native of the Bay Area, is the Statewide Coordinator for California Poets-in-the-Schools, and she very much disproves the myth that all artists are incapable of surviving in the 20th century.
In an interview, she debunks the myth entirely. She began teaching in Poets-in-the-Schools in 1978 and rapidly moved forward into the position of Office Administrator; in 1981, she was nominated the Statewide Coordinator for the entire program.
CPITS had its beginnings at San Francisco State University in 1964 and was spawned out of a writing program called the Pegasus
California Poets-in-the-Schools (CPITS) is a statewide community-based Artists-in-Schools (AIS) program jointly sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the California Arts Council, and is the only AIS program in the country which is fully administered by practicing poets.
KH: You go back to your own work and realize you're stuck on structure too. I wanted to talk about why poetry is such an important medium for the expression of language with kids. Why poetry? Why not essays? Why not stories or sentences? There's a real interesting difference between a sentence and what we call in poetry, the line.
In poetry the line can be any length. It can be one word or one syllable. Or it can be twenty words strung together. The difference has to do with syntax, punctuation, length, and visibility. It's all those open structures that poetry offers compared to the closed structure of the sentence. When we're teaching poetry in the classroom, we're not only teaching competence or familiarity or excitement with language, which, of course, is essential, but we're also teaching a way of thinking, a way of thought which is right brain—non-linear circular thought. A process of opening up your mind to accept all kinds of possibilities. You're teaching a process of thought, and all those processes affect the way kids would approach any task in school.
Think of physics—all the things they discovered by mind leaping. That's what poetry is, leaps. What we're trying to do is to help the student learn the process of discovery. In poetry there are no right answers. In the process of writing, we discover we are independent thinkers.
For more information on Poets-in-the-Schools, contact Area Coordinator for Lake, Napa and Sonoma Counties, Lee Perron, 9312 Champs, Forestville, or call (707) 887-7850.
CPITS is the largest writers-in-schools program in the US and, as of last year, there were 130 poets teaching in the program in 220 schools in 21 regions of the state. Poets work directly with 19, 000 kids, kindergarten through 12th grade, in workshops lasting anywhere from 5 days to the whole school year.
CPITS had its beginnings at San Francisco State University in 1964 and was spawned out of a writing program called the Pegasus Project. Similar to the Youth-in-Arts program in Marin County, CPITS brought established published poets into the schools to give readings at assemblies and special events. In 1971 the poets started going into the classrooms to actually teach children their craft. The results were astounding.
There was almost a 100% positive response: everyone wrote poems, and everyone could see the value of one another's poetic vision. Not only that, kids began to do better in other school activities. An enhanced reading and writing enrichment program, Poets-in-the-Schools has consistantly proven itself to be an important part of the school curriculum.
CPITS is especially active in Sonoma County, which has been dubbed a "hot-bed of activity, " due to Area Coordinator Lee Perron and the incredible energies of the local poets.
When asked what it's like to work for CPITS, Katharine Harer said, "I love my job because I not only believe in the program (bringing poetry to the kids) but the people I work for are creative and exciting. We are making it possible for poets to work at what they believe in, to do what they love to do.
Poets don't have to starve, bes, pump as or bus dishes…There’s a crazy kind of dignity that comes from walking into a school and having everyone know who you are— “Oh, you're the poet!'—and want you in their school. "
Maureen Hurley: In a recent article I wrote, Education: Back to Basics, Art as the 4th R" with Lee Perron (see Dec. 3-10, 1981 of the Stump), two of the themes I was concerned with were one's role as an artist, and the role of being a coordinator. How do artists function in the 20th century, and how does an artist deal with the myth of being incompetent and "flakey?"
Katharine Harer: I think a lot of poets in the program are disproving that. There’s such a bad reputation about artists, which is also part of the positive, romantic reputation of being an artist. aura that surrounds an artist, especially a poet, is that you can't deal with the world, that you re too cosmic, that you’re too involved in your neuroses. You’re too out of it. You can't do paperwork, etc. It’s a myth. Last year poets raised a total of $225,000. That's money raised in the communities which includes private foundation grants and community money—that's an incredible statement about what we're able to do.
MH: Yes, how those flakes are hustling..
KH: That's right! I'm not saying there's something intrinsically great about being able to handle paper-work, but how do you live without being aware of some of those realities?
MH: A lot of poets today wind up in university situations but jobs there are limited. I think CPITS allows poets to continue being poets and still survive financially, which is a challenge, isn't it?
KH: It's a challenge to say you're not a technician in the schools, a mechanic who goes in to turn the right levers and the right screws. You're a poet. Hopefully you're publishing and sharing your work in the community.
MH: How do you deal with people who are technicians? I mean, there are great poets who can't teach and great teachers who are not artists.
KH: By encouraging them to continue to write and publish their work. I think a lot of us forget as we deal with all kinds of administrative and functional aspects of the CPITS program that we can never forget we're poets.
The Sonoma County group is very active. You put on readings for the communities. I think it's essential to keep reading the poems, and sharing the work.
MH: I've always felt that being a poet is a full time occupation, and being a poet-teacher in CPITS is also a full time occupation. You we’re saying earlier, it’s a challenge to stay a poet, with the two together. We're working double time as compared to most people, and we've got to somehow intertwine the two…
CPITS had its beginnings at San Francisco State University in 1964 and was spawned out of a writing program called the Pegasus Project. Similar to the Youth-in-Arts program in Marin County, CPITS brought established published poets into the schools to give readings at assemblies and special events. In 1971 the poets started going into the classrooms to actually teach children their craft. The results were astounding.
There was almost a 100% positive response: everyone wrote poems, and everyone could see the value of one another's poetic vision. Not only that, kids began to do better in other school activities. An enhanced reading and writing enrichment program, Poets-in-the-Schools has consistantly proven itself to be an important part of the school curriculum.
CPITS is especially active in Sonoma County, which has been dubbed a "hot-bed of activity, " due to Area Coordinator Lee Perron and the incredible energies of the local poets.
When asked what it's like to work for CPITS, Katharine Harer said, "I love my job because I not only believe in the program (bringing poetry to the kids) but the people I work for are creative and exciting. We are making it possible for poets to work at what they believe in, to do what they love to do.
Poets don't have to starve, bes, pump as or bus dishes…There’s a crazy kind of dignity that comes from walking into a school and having everyone know who you are— “Oh, you're the poet!'—and want you in their school. "
Maureen Hurley: In a recent article I wrote, Education: Back to Basics, Art as the 4th R" with Lee Perron (see Dec. 3-10, 1981 of the Stump), two of the themes I was concerned with were one's role as an artist, and the role of being a coordinator. How do artists function in the 20th century, and how does an artist deal with the myth of being incompetent and "flakey?"
Katharine Harer: I think a lot of poets in the program are disproving that. There’s such a bad reputation about artists, which is also part of the positive, romantic reputation of being an artist. aura that surrounds an artist, especially a poet, is that you can't deal with the world, that you re too cosmic, that you’re too involved in your neuroses. You’re too out of it. You can't do paperwork, etc. It’s a myth. Last year poets raised a total of $225,000. That's money raised in the communities which includes private foundation grants and community money—that's an incredible statement about what we're able to do.
MH: Yes, how those flakes are hustling..
KH: That's right! I'm not saying there's something intrinsically great about being able to handle paper-work, but how do you live without being aware of some of those realities?
MH: A lot of poets today wind up in university situations but jobs there are limited. I think CPITS allows poets to continue being poets and still survive financially, which is a challenge, isn't it?
KH: It's a challenge to say you're not a technician in the schools, a mechanic who goes in to turn the right levers and the right screws. You're a poet. Hopefully you're publishing and sharing your work in the community.
MH: How do you deal with people who are technicians? I mean, there are great poets who can't teach and great teachers who are not artists.
KH: By encouraging them to continue to write and publish their work. I think a lot of us forget as we deal with all kinds of administrative and functional aspects of the CPITS program that we can never forget we're poets.
The Sonoma County group is very active. You put on readings for the communities. I think it's essential to keep reading the poems, and sharing the work.
MH: I've always felt that being a poet is a full time occupation, and being a poet-teacher in CPITS is also a full time occupation. You we’re saying earlier, it’s a challenge to stay a poet, with the two together. We're working double time as compared to most people, and we've got to somehow intertwine the two…
KH: yes, but somehow the one really spirals the other. Once I was a cocktail waitress and I thought I was going to write great cocktail waitress poems from this experience and it didn't happen. I think it's because I was so exhausted spiritually, because the job didn't give me much energy. A part of me feels that it's important—it's dignifying to work, and that was real work. I was in the union and working my ass off. Whereas when I teach, I'm so excited about poetry that I want to write. I want to be in the process of writing. In a way, we're working morè, but it's a self stimulating cycle.
MH: What about being with the kids and watching the creative process unfold?
KH: Part of the strength and dynamism of what we do in the classroom is not what gets down on a piece of pap-er, but our presence as a poet. I'm a poet. This is what I do. I get up in the morning and write poetry. Wanna see my notebook? I want to show them the process. It's messy. There are doodles and crossouts in it. If we can extend that to other textures and possibilities, like bringing in paintings, music, drama, mime, it enriches their sense of what expression is all about. I think that poets. are in the schools because kids need to be guided toward that poetic part of themselves just like adults do.
Adults are more rigid. They've been pushing words on paper for so long that they're really stuck on structures. What we're trying to do is to open the structures up. So, when kids write, because they're newer to language, they can open up much faster.
MH: That's what I really get a buzz from. Seeing them opening up the structure and seeing my own writing change so dramatically. When I'm writing in the workshops, that brings the whole process back home for me.
MH: What about being with the kids and watching the creative process unfold?
KH: Part of the strength and dynamism of what we do in the classroom is not what gets down on a piece of pap-er, but our presence as a poet. I'm a poet. This is what I do. I get up in the morning and write poetry. Wanna see my notebook? I want to show them the process. It's messy. There are doodles and crossouts in it. If we can extend that to other textures and possibilities, like bringing in paintings, music, drama, mime, it enriches their sense of what expression is all about. I think that poets. are in the schools because kids need to be guided toward that poetic part of themselves just like adults do.
Adults are more rigid. They've been pushing words on paper for so long that they're really stuck on structures. What we're trying to do is to open the structures up. So, when kids write, because they're newer to language, they can open up much faster.
MH: That's what I really get a buzz from. Seeing them opening up the structure and seeing my own writing change so dramatically. When I'm writing in the workshops, that brings the whole process back home for me.
KH: You go back to your own work and realize you're stuck on structure too. I wanted to talk about why poetry is such an important medium for the expression of language with kids. Why poetry? Why not essays? Why not stories or sentences? There's a real interesting difference between a sentence and what we call in poetry, the line.
In poetry the line can be any length. It can be one word or one syllable. Or it can be twenty words strung together. The difference has to do with syntax, punctuation, length, and visibility. It's all those open structures that poetry offers compared to the closed structure of the sentence. When we're teaching poetry in the classroom, we're not only teaching competence or familiarity or excitement with language, which, of course, is essential, but we're also teaching a way of thinking, a way of thought which is right brain—non-linear circular thought. A process of opening up your mind to accept all kinds of possibilities. You're teaching a process of thought, and all those processes affect the way kids would approach any task in school.
Think of physics—all the things they discovered by mind leaping. That's what poetry is, leaps. What we're trying to do is to help the student learn the process of discovery. In poetry there are no right answers. In the process of writing, we discover we are independent thinkers.
For more information on Poets-in-the-Schools, contact Area Coordinator for Lake, Napa and Sonoma Counties, Lee Perron, 9312 Champs, Forestville, or call (707) 887-7850.
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