Nicelle Davis, an adjunct English professor at AVC, organized the happening on Saturday Aug. 28 advertising it as a “poetry reading”.
Beyond that description, none of the participating students had the faintest idea as to what Davis had in mind.
The event was to put Marjorie Tesser’s award winning book “The Important Thing Is…” to use in the spirit of a book review to be published on the Pank Magazine blog.
According to Davis in her blog entry, the book comes with a box of game cards and instructions that “give only one rule—break all the rules”.
The concept behind the book and activities on Saturday was that by organizing the given words, the reader or participant would be able to construct meaning unique to their outlook or philosophy.
“The list poems ask, is it more important to keep a clean record or to see the cup half full?” Asks Davis, adding, “Or is the most important thing in life really to discover how non sequiturs connect?”
The lack of a specific description might explain the low turn out, but since it occurred in the Antelope Valley during the slow first weekend of the semester, someone was bound to show up.
At Marie Kerr Park, the six students that arrived participated in a series of games involving signs with the words: thing, this, love, family, space, hurt, health, quiet and sex.
One game was a mad dash to photographer Jason Hughes as he documented the event, while another game was a slide race on the park’s play set.
Participants were expected to run competitively while holding the cumbersome, paper signs with the chosen words.
The winner of each game would then have the choice of rearranging the words in whatever order he or she wished.
The results were cryptic and strangely sexual since no matter where the word “sex” was positioned the poem became oddly dirty–this was half the fun.
Something perhaps as interesting as the poetry itself was that local professors from AVC happened to be writing blogs and articles intended for international audiences, on the small happenings here in the AV.
Pank Magazine is a non-profit literary collective that publishes its work daily on the web as well as monthly in the printed magazine and annually in the Pank Little Book Series.
First founded in 2006, last year the magazine had a readership of over 80,000.
Davis is a regular contributor and has published several pieces on the main website and blog.
Like most artistic happenings in the AV there was much confusion and impromptu creativity to be had.
This goes to show that if one follows the mysterious advertisements at the local coffeehouse, anything can happen.
- Amber Lucido
