4B — Thursday, February 26, 2015
the b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
By GRACE HAMILTON
Daily Arts Writer
On the Pacific coast of North
America, starfish are falling to
pieces. A disease called sea star
wasting syndrome has swept
the region, causing a massive
die-off. Limbs fall off, tissue
deteriorates and the organisms
die rapidly. Though starfish
usually regenerate, these ones
can’t. No one knows why.
What does one do with this
new piece of bizarre, troubling
information about the state of
our oceans? Some will embark
on extra research, others will
likely find it uninteresting and
discard it immediately. Scott
Beal writes a poem.
Scott Beal, who attended the
University (and was an Arts
writer for the Daily), currently
teaches at the University in
the English Department, the
Sweetland Center and the Lloyd
Hall Scholar’s Program. He
is also the Dzanc Writer-in-
Residence at Ann Arbor Open
School, a father and a poet.
“I’ll learn things about the
world that are puzzling and
surprising and want to figure
out what to think of it, what to
learn from it. I’m really trying
to learn something about how
I interact with people and how
that is mirrored or contradicted
by the ways that other beings
on the planet interact with each
other,” Beal said of his poem,
“Sea Star Wasting Syndrome.”
Some of his other poems have
similar missions, including one
about the interactions between
hermaphroditic snails.
Other pieces of Beal’s are
autobiographical, coming from
particular
experiences,
like
the time he found a note under
his windshield wiper accusing
of him of stealing someone’s
money, or explaining to one of
his daughters that lightning can
strike people.
“I think every poem comes
from a different place,” he said.
“You start off with something
puzzling and try to riddle it
out.”
Still, a common theme lies at
the heart of any good poem.
“(A good poem) will move
us in a new way, and show us
the path to better compassion,
a
better
sense
of
justice
and fairness,” he said. “It is
aware of its implications and
complicities.”
Most of Beal’s poems are not
direct responses to individual
issues, though he told me he
considers privilege and justice
when he writers. I challenged
him on this idea, and asked him
to explain the way that themes
of justice and compassion are at
work in “Warning and Watch,”
the poem about lightning that is
13 lines long.
His response moved me.
There are a couple of ways in
which this path to compassion
and justice lays beneath the
imagery of clouds.
“First of all, there is the notion
of how to help his children
navigate a dangerous world,”
he explained, referring to his
daughter’s fear at the thought of
being struck by lightning. That
particular thought opens up a
general sense of wonder about
the world.
“In that moment you can
spin into a consciousness of
being alive, and increasing your
awareness of being a living
organism on the planet also
helps build empathy and value
in human life,” he said.
Of course, not all good poems
need to do this. There are other
reasons to love and appreciate
poetry.
“I’m drawn to the idea
of making language do new
things,
energizing
it
and
making
it
dazzling
and
sizzling,” he said.
In the poetry class he is
currently
teaching
at
the
University, he has implemented
a
system
called
“Gamified
Grading,” where getting an
A requires earning a certain
number of points, say, 3,500.
Every poem is worth a certain
number of points, regardless of
his liking for it, although it can
be improved with revision.
“We’re trained to think of it
as, there’s a meaning, you can
paraphrase it, but only if you
can decode it. And then you
think, this isn’t for me, this is
an art form that is deliberately
trying to leave me out,” he said.
Boiled
down,
I
received
three important messages from
Beal about the power of poetry:
It utilizes and appreciates the
best of what language can be,
it is a means of making sense
of the world around us and it is
a means of understanding our
place within that world.
ARTIST
PROFILE
IN
VIRGINIA LOZANO/Daily
Scott Beal is a lecturer of English at the University.
TRAILER REVIEW
Will Smith seems to own a
new seriousness in his middle
age — a more refined sense of
limits and a less
naïve sense of
opportunities.
Whether
his
personality will
be able to domi-
nate and guide
“Focus”
will
determine the success of the
movie. The more this movie
gives to Will Smith, the more it’ll
take away at the box office.
Margot
Robbie’s
charac-
ter doesn’t feel trustworthy in
any sense. She can’t be trusted
with the flow of the action. She
can’t be trusted with any clever
quips or plot twists. She can’t be
trusted by or with Smith. But
it’s clear Smith is going to trust
her when she reenters his life
in the second half of the movie
for the crescendo. If this movie
is going to play out big, it needs
Will Smith at the wheel through
and through.
How much control is Smith
going to concede to this blonde
bombshell? How are things
going to go wrong? No one’s
expecting a blockbuster, but
Smith’s magic might be able to
spin this into something along
the lines of a modern “Casa-
blanca.”
We have to wait and see who
screws who. It’ll be a worthy
flick to see, no matter what.
-NOAH COHEN
B
Focus
Warner Bros.
WARNER BROS.
LITERARY COLUMN
The University’s
literary legacy
A
few days ago, I was at
home watching clas-
sic Saturday Night
Live episodes with my parents.
Between their explaining
40-some-
thing-
year-old
pop cul-
ture refer-
ences and
debating
whether
Simon or
Garfunkel
was the
bigger
diva, we
discussed how original SNL
cast member Gilda Radner
attended the University of
Michigan.
This conversation got me
thinking about other famous
fellow Wolverines. Of course,
there are some alumni we hear
about all the time. You probably
already know about 38th Presi-
dent of the United States, Ger-
ald Ford, as well as Tom Brady,
four-time Super Bowl Champi-
on Quarterback.
You may know that Madonna
was enrolled in the School of
Music, Theatre & Dance before
she moved to New York City
or that we can also claim actor
and iconic voice of Darth Vader
James Earl Jones, as well as
“Kill Bill” actress Lucy Liu.
But did you know the uni-
versity also has a rich literary
legacy?
Take
for
example
James
Avery Hopwood, class of 1905,
who was the preeminent play-
wright of the 1920s. When he
died, he left one-fifth of his
vast estate to his alma mater for
the creation of the Hopwood
Awards, which reward students
for excellence in creative writ-
ing. Since 1931, the Hopwoods
have recognized the potential
of some of the greatest literary
talents of contemporary times.
One such talent was Betty
Smith, ’31, who took classes at
the University while raising her
two children. In 1943, she pub-
lished her seminal novel “A Tree
Grows in Brooklyn,” a coming-
of-age story centered on a poor
immigrant family in the early
twentieth century. The novel
was later adapted into a film
and a Broadway musical.
Obviously, no examination
of
the
University’s
literary
landscape would be complete
without mentioning multiple
Hopwood
Award
winner
and
Pulitzer
Prize-winning
playwright Arthur Miller, a.k.a.
the dude who was married to
Marilyn Monroe for five years.
Author of such classic works
as “Death of a Salesman” and
“The Crucible,” Miller is often
considered to be one of the
greatest American dramatists
of all time. He graduated from
the University in 1938. (Did I
mention he also wrote for The
Michigan Daily?)
Another Hopwood winner,
poet Frank O’Hara, achieved his
M.A. in English literature from
the University in 1951. O’Hara,
known for his intellectual yet
intensely
personal
style
of
writing, was a highly influential
figure in the New York School
artistic
movement
of
the
1950s and ’60s. His collected
poems
posthumously
won
the National Book Award for
Poetry in 1972. Fans of AMC’s
hit
television
series
“Mad
Men” may recognize O’Hara’s
“Meditations in an Emergency”
as a reoccurring symbol in
Season 2.
The
University
has
also
left quite a mark on children’s
literature. Chris Van Allsburg,
author of classics “Jumanji”
and
“The
Polar
Express”
and a two-time winner of
the
Caldecott
Medal,
one
of
the
most
prestigious
awards for children’s books,
graduated from the College
of Architecture and Design in
1972. I pity your childhood if it
didn’t include several viewings
of the 1995 Robin Williams film
adaptation of “Jumanji.” And
the film adaption of “The Polar
Express” gave us one of the
greatest Christmas songs of all
time, Josh Groban’s “Believe.”
Chris Van Allsburg pretty much
creates joy and happiness.
Jumping
back
to
Adult
Fiction,
Elizabeth
Kostova,
MFA ’04, is another Hopwood
winner who has gone on to find
tremendous success. Her 2005
novel “The Historian” became
the first debut novel to become
number one on The New York
Times bestseller list in its first
week on sale. I admit, I am a
bit biased regarding Kostova,
as I absolutely loved the dark,
Victorian-esque “Historian.”
Clearly, there’s a wide array
of noteworthy literary alums to
emulate. So read some of your
fellow Victors and get inspired
to write a masterpiece of your
own. You never know, maybe
one day the University will
hand out an award named after
you.
Didn’t see “Jumanji”?
Email Prosniewski at gpros@
umich.edu to get some pity.
GRACE
PROSNIEWSKI
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