Red Room Poetry Education presents The Disappearing redroomcompany.org   1  

 

Red Room Poetry Education presents: The Disappearing

‘…because he believes that dreams are fragile and shouldn't be disturbed.’ ~ Omar Musa, from The Disappearing

What is Red Room Poetry Education? Red Room Poetry Education inspires students and teachers to create, perform and publish poetry. We enliven experiences with poetry by bringing contemporary poets into classrooms across Australia to run workshops that awaken imaginations and support curriculum outcomes. For more information contact Education Manager Dr. Tamryn Bennett education@redroomcompany.org What is The Disappearing? The Disappearing is a free app for iPhone, iPad and smartphones that (literally) maps poetry and place. Created by The Red Room Company, The Disappearing uses geo-location technology to map poetry to place. As a portable, digital poetry anthology, the app chart traces, fragmentary histories, impressions and memories, encouraging readers to interact in non-linear ways. The app invites public users to contribute poems, images and videos that capture the emotions, ideas and experiences associated with places and memories that change and transform over time. redroomcompany.org/projects/disappearing/

Workshop overview

o The Disappearing as an interactive poetry app and multimodal anthology. o Explore hundreds of contemporary poems and poet videos including

Indigenous and Asian voices. o Create, collaborate and respond to contemporary poetry to support

practical teaching strategies in the classroom.

Red Room Poetry Education presents The Disappearing redroomcompany.org    

2  

Activity 1: The Disappearing List What things have you noticed disappearing or changing? (Think about physical places as well as memories and experiences.) As a class, in pairs, or individually, create a Disappearing list or pin board. Add to your list over time.

Activity 2: Reading, viewing, responding

Reading As a class, read aloud selected poems or excerpts from The Disappearing commissioned poems (p. 3 - 6) Viewing Choose from a variety of YouTube clips featuring Disappearing poets reading and discussing their works (p. 6) Responding Use questions to guide class discussion and illicit student responses (p.7)

Red Room Poetry Education presents The Disappearing redroomcompany.org    

3  

Reading Full poems and biographies of poets available from The Disappearing app and Red Room website. * indicates cross-curricula content * The Disappearing Suite (excerpt) In the room that you reach at the end of the poem there is a mirror that shivers with an afterimage, a tremble in the curtain, a whiff of a forgotten scent on the dust-sheets drawn over what has survived. ~ Kim Cheng Boey, from The Disappearing * The Great Displaced (excerpt) He will leave before dawn. His sisters are asleep and he will not wake them because he believes that dreams are fragile and shouldn't be disturbed. ~ Omar bin Musa, from The Disappearing Absence (excerpt) Funny how you leave a trace on space. The silver, flattened grass whispers that here (not long ago) someone lay. ~ Sarah Rice, from The Disappearing Rouse Hill (excerpt) Foreign culture planted on native soil determined to survive and flourish just like the estranged plants in the garden outside ~ Nick B. Smith (a.k.a SOLO), from The Disappearing

* YILAALU –BU-GADI (once upon a time in the bay of Gadi) Mellaluca Yurali (eucalyptus) Paperbark Kurrijong Mother tongue will always guide you home by song ~ Lorna Munro, from The Disappearing * Dripping with Decadence (excerpt) How many dead, how many more sacrificed? How many brave warriors paid the ultimate price? To build the big house of ghosts on a hill ~ Lorna Munro, from The Disappearing The Stairs (excerpt) Such lives above, below, behind, on stairs, have trod the elegant cantilever that does its own curve into disappear as did Peter Henderson, butler, footman, a life sentence for opening a letter in the Edinburgh Post Office ~ Jill Jones, from The Disappearing The Royal Treatment (excerpt) the flare of a gas lamp by papers igniting as the lounge lights up brilliant in incandescence, steaming the rank smell of water, river-drawn, spilling slip-lipped in sweaty hands by bucket-to-bucket willing workers praying for bucketing rain. ~ Helen Ramoutsaki, from The Disappearing

Red Room Poetry Education presents The Disappearing redroomcompany.org    

4  

* St Kilda (excerpt) a house planted on dead memories. Eyes catch shadows, shoes read the Braille of faces. Shades surface beneath my boots, blacken the soles on the sullen trail, a ghost-infested city. - Ali Alizadeh, from The Disappearing Now (excerpt) The two places and the love between them are dissolving. The delicate shells of dates and their highways are dissolving. Thin bones threading through wing are dissolving. I am a faint scar on the lip of a woman. ~ Stuare Cooke, from The Disappearing Slow Falling (excerpt) The view across the hills is to the sea Inch by year closer to the ground A salt breeze licks the timbers tilting free The house slow falling makes no sound ~ Genevieve Osborne, from The Disappearing Black Throated Finch (excerpt) It sets off the electricity of their flight, as one they scatter To the air, like a handful of wedding rice. Their fall might Weigh as much; in the billionaire’s thoughts he’s ripped Out the earth’s coal-black throat; the box trees cut open Like rich sediment. Their habitat halved like a seed cake. ~ Brett Dionysius, from The Disappearing

Desire paths (excerpt) Air surrounds us with suspended grit – it is shape-shifting dunes with a singing sound that’s sorrowful as disappearing lakes and rising salt. ~ AM Weldon, from The Disappearing The Olgas (excerpt) But from the east a cold wind splinters our clothes, and the domes look like vanishing into the plain of spinifex before we reach them. ~ Leni Shilton, from The Disappearing Nothing remains (excerpt) This antique landscape’s living proof of some imperative to fill an emptiness that, even as it fills, is void again, where temporary interruptions leave a new blank slate on which to make a mark, or leave a trace, or be erased. ~ Virginia Jealous, from The Disappearing

Red Room Poetry Education presents The Disappearing redroomcompany.org    

5  

Reappearing (excerpt) Disappearing in this traffic down the highway of my ignorance. Marrickville the limit of my inner westy roads. Five years in this city, and yet, and yet. 40k school zones and disappearing time. Stay calm, stay focussed, and stay on the highway. There is an end to this mess in a car park in Liverpool. Step from the car and dive. The first day of school. Always. Forever. The fear at the gates. Outsider inside. Sign in, take a number, go directly to class, where beginnings begin and the fear falls away. Creation. So many lives and so many stories, astonished at the depth in answer to the question: what has disappeared from you life? Childhood goes. The connection with parents. It all disappears, because nothing lasts forever. ~ Tim Sinclair, from The Disappearing Endemic Problem (excerpt) Secreting mucous hermaphroditic Meridolum corneovirens slides slowly beneath the log to evade the encroaching concrete tonnage of western Sydney’s suburbs ~ Jake Dennis, from The Disappearing Going Under (excerpt) Fifteen minutes in any direction is too far. We fashion an island from peninsula and mountain. No one thinks to go north We sink under smoke like Atlantis ~ Jaime Shields, from The Disappearing

Blackout (excerpt) The animals could see it though: you, turned to stone, your kids swinging from the power-lines, and the atmosphere, alive with evaporating sparks. ~ Toby Fitch, from The Disappearing Beneath the South Head Old Road, 1835 (excerpt) It is not my country under the street but there is a kind of welcome, a barely perceptible dialect hissing in the sandstone, beckoning me to lie down inside the rough hewn tunnel, let last year’s rain roll me in its forgetting; ~ Nandi Chinna, from The Disappearing No Clock (excerpt) If I close my eyes she is only noises, My ears and she is only smells. The children she played hide-and-seek with Are in their sixties now. I am poised and waiting; She has no bell whose rope to pull And no clock to time my exit. ~ Matt Norman, from The Disappearing

* Lunch hour In the corner old Nick kneels before his oiled wood-box. Yesterday, his birthday; today the cardboard sign reads only ‘Homeless Shoe Shine’.

~ Eileen Chong, from The Disappearing

Red Room Poetry Education presents The Disappearing redroomcompany.org    

6  

The Invisible Mother (excerpt) This photo is the way I catch hold of you – keep holding you as you swoop into tomorrow – next year – on your brightly coloured wheels – your endangered knees. ~ Hannah Mettner, from The Disappearing The Wolves (excerpt) Five wolves went hiding in the corners of the island, each with stripes across their spines just like the newly- arrived men’s, who also wore faces darkened with the desire to kill and devour whatever might present itself as an indication that life had come before them, and would go on long after they had gone. ~ Bert Spinks, from The Disappearing

Viewing As well as over 100 commissioned poems by emerging and established Australian poets, The Disappearing features exclusive video readings and interviews with poets. www.youtube.com/user/redroomcompany

Stage 4 Bert Spinks - The Wolves youtube.com/watch?v=WmP_IqUkKQs Nick Bryant Smith – Rouse Hill youtube.com/watch?v=Yg4fMkjfI9c Stage 5 Omar Musa – The Great Displaced youtube.com/watch?v=SYpuP0eRDSU Fiona Wright – Discussion of The Disappearing youtube.com/watch?v=-pALSin-1WA

Red Room Poetry Education presents The Disappearing redroomcompany.org    

7  

Responding Working in pairs, choose one poem from The Disappearing and answer the following questions: What things make this poem different to other poems you have encountered? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment on the title of the poem. What do you think are the main ideas of the poem? What does it make you feel? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Focus on a particular image in the poem. Explain your reaction to this image? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What poetic devices are used within the poem? Identify at least four examples and explain how they create and layer meaning in the poem. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tip: Providing students with a glossary of poetic devices may be helpful. alliteration, allusion, ambiguity, assonance, enjambment, hyperbole, internal rhyme, juxtaposition, metaphor, mood, onomatopoeia, original imagery, personification, repetition, rhythm, simile, symbolism, tone.

Red Room Poetry Education presents The Disappearing redroomcompany.org    

8  

Activity 3: Group Poem

Source: news.distractify.com/culture/arts/the-most-spectacular-abandoned-places-in-the-world/ Ekphrasis (or ecphrasis) is an ancient Greek term that refers to the verbal rendering of a visual artwork. Traditionally, ekphrasis described the poetic practice of responding to sculptures and paintings but has since evolved to encompass responses to artworks in a range of media including music, film and photography. Instructions 1. Look carefully at the image. 2. Individually create a 4-line poem in response to this image. 3. When everyone has completed their writing, choose your favourite line and read it out loud one student after another. This sharing creates the final poem. 4. Invite students to ‘direct’ the poem by rearranging the lines to alter the meaning and rhythm of the group poem. Discuss how selection and ordering the poem is part of the drafting and editing process.

Title: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Publication Transcribe stanzas or individual lines to create a group poem for display or publication on The Disappearing app or in a class anthology.

Red Room Poetry Education presents The Disappearing redroomcompany.org    

9  

Activity 4: Erasure Poetry Instructions:

1. Look carefully at Tim Sinclair’s poem ‘Reappearing’.

2. Using a pencil, circle all the words, letters or numbers you would like to use in your new poem.

3. Once you have circled all the words you want to use, begin ‘blacking out’ the words you don’t want with marker pens or coloured pencils.

Tips: Underline the words you like in pencil first. Circle all the words you know you want to use BEFORE you begin to erase. Be creative. You can include pictures or rivers in your erasure. If you can’t find the word you want, then use the letters in a number of words to create it. You can link words with connecting arrows through the text if they aren’t in the right order. Remember that you can include images and photographs from the article in your final poem.

Disappearing in this traffic down the highway of my ignorance.

Marrickville the limit of my inner westy roads. Five years in

this city, and yet, and yet. 40k school zones and disappearing time. Stay calm, stay focussed, and stay on the highway. There is an end to this mess in a car park in Liverpool. Step from the

car and dive. The first day of school. Always. Forever. The

fear at the gates. Outsider inside. Sign in, take a number,

go directly to class, where beginnings begin and the fear falls

away. Creation. So many lives and so many stories, astonished

at the depth in answer to the question: what has disappeared

from you life? Childhood goes. The connection with parents. It

all disappears, because nothing lasts forever. Assembly. The PA

piped into every classroom. Just waiting for a few very noisy people.

The particular tone in the voice of authority, straight down

the shiver of my spine. I was disappointed— pride disappearing— at the number of black socks… We disappoint our elders, time and again. White socks or blue socks are the only socks! My

socks have stripes. Terror. And the pile back in as recess is over

as the brains come full and exploding with ideas. Standing in lines

and rearranging lines. Room change! shouted at the puzzled door

knockers. Room change shouted until we shout it ourselves. No doubt /

we are dreaming / linked / we are linked / angry /disrespectful

/ posing first person / bubbles of freedom /celebration / rebel

/ place / questions / insecurity. The lines rearranging and

arranging again. We read, all read. Sharing this space. Sharing

this moment where our words stand equal. After lunch there is

a spoon dipped in honey. There are waves on the beach. There is the smell of old book shops. Stones transformed by words,

words transformed by stones. Timer switch. The lights go out.

Test us with a skewer; we’re not quite ready. A conversation has power.

Red Room Poetry Education presents The Disappearing redroomcompany.org    

10  

Site study: Disappearing poem

According to glaciologists from New Zealand’s Canterbury and Victoria universities, the Franz Josef Glacier could disappear within the next 100 years. 1. Research a site and create a poem for your chosen place. 2. Think carefully about the voice or persona of your poem. You might even write from the perspective of the place itself. Try to experiment with a range of poetic devices. Here are a few to help you along: alliteration, assonance, countermeasure, enjambment, form, imagery, internal rhyme, repetition, lineation, metaphor, metre, onomatopoeia, personification, rhythm, simile, visual arrangement Optional: Use a poetic constraint (eg. write your poem without using the letter ‘e’. See how this changes the tone, rhythm, and language choices within your poem. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Submissions Guide: Ownership, Privacy and Safety All poets who contribute content to the app retain copyright of their work. Students whose work features on The Disappearing app will only be identified by their first name, year group and school. How to submit your poems and information text You can compose your poem and information text about your chosen public place in the Submit poems section of the app. You might find it easier to draft your poem in Word and then paste it into the app. You can also send us your poem directly by using the Submit Poems section of the app. All content is mediated by The Red Room Company and does not immediately appear on the app. disappearing@redroomcompany.org How to submit video and audio files The easiest way for video and audio files to be included on the app is for you to post them directly on to YouTube and then send The Red Room Company a link by email. If you don’t have a YouTube account you can email your video or audio files to disappearing@redroomcompany.org Submitting photographs Photographs to accompany poems and information texts cannot be directly submitted to the app. Please send your digital photographs to: disappearing@redroomcompany.org The preferred format is jpeg. Portrait shots are preferred to landscape shots. Please include your name(s) and the title of your poem in the subject line of the email. Please label your files with the title of your poem, your name and your school e.g. DarlingHarbourTomCranbrook.jpeg or TownHallStepsAliCranbrook.jpeg Troubleshooting and problems with uploading content If you have any problems with uploading please contact disappearing@redroomcompany.org Contact For information about The Red Room Company and our education resources, please contact Dr. Tamryn Bennett email: education@redroomcompany.org office: +61 (02) 93195090 mobile: +61 417725821