Freedom of poetic license

By: Kyle Christensen
Features Editor

Rhyming, haiku, epic, limerick, free verse, sonnet-- no matter what form it takes on, poetry has been a proven method of helping many aspiring artists connect with their true essence and unlock the gateway of divine expression. This is a philosophy very much known by Kimberly Johnson and Jay Hopler, two poets who visited the Monmouth College campus this past weekend and conducted a reading of their distinctive and diverse poetry selections.

The two met as graduate students at the University of Iowa and have been adamant fans of each other since, inspiring what they dubbed as “tag-team reading” on Sunday, Oct. 22, in the Great Room of the Mellinger Learning Center. “The thing with tag-team reading is I listen to what she’s reading, and then I decide what I’m going to read next. My book and her’s are sort of in conversation with each other,” explained Hopler.

As Hopler, a teacher from the University of South Florida in Tampa, read aloud from his 2006 collection, “Green Squall” (winner of the 2005 Yale Series of Younger Poets Award) and Johnson recited passages from her 2002 anthology of works “Leviathan with a Hook,” it became clear the dynamics that existed between them and how such a duo used the craft of poetic exchange to promote their own distinguishing voices. Hopler shined a wiser, grander light upon theoretically mundane subject matter like infant perception, childhood and growing up through the turbulence of adolescence, interweaving his inventive examinations with bouts of acerbic wit, at one point even stating, “All of my poems are based on real life, but I lie.”

Johnson, on the other hand, often took a more sensitive approach to her oral narrations, focusing on contrasting classical themes, such as the presence of saints and angels and the impact of famous historical movements/reforms on the course of all mankind. As Johnson commented, poking fun at herself, “I find myself surprised with how many poems I have to introduce with ‘there’s this part in the 16th century…’”

Additional information about the authors and their published material may be obtained at www.yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/youngerpoets.asp for Hopler and www.nea.gov/features/Writers/Johnson.html for Johnson.