William Reichard
Teaching & Learning with HECUA Students
It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.
William Carlos Williams
from “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower”
Lately I’ve been thinking a great deal about this poem. It’s one of my favorites, and the last two lines, in particular, resonate with me: “for lack / of what is found there.” A great deal has been written on Williams and his work, and I defer to the experts when it comes to the proper interpretation of his poetry, but for me, these few lines sum up what the City Arts and Writing for Social Change programs are all about. Of course we don’t “get the news from poems,” (or art in general), but over my last seven years with HECUA, I have come to believe that people truly do “die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.” In his poem, Williams is talking about the urgent and ongoing need of all people to express themselves; to mourn; to celebrate; to rage; to comfort; simply to be heard; acknowledged by the world. When individuals or societies are not allowed this necessary means of self-expression, affirmation of the value of their lives and their worlds, they suffer. Some go mad. Some kill themselves. Some kill others. The majority of these voiceless people and cultures simply fade into oblivion. The real history of the world, the one not written by the victors, is full of the silent stories of such people and their cultures. Made invisible by hegemony, hatred, fear, or tyranny, their ghosts quietly haunt us. Every time one of us writes a poem, makes a sculpture or a painting or choreographs a new dance, this piece of work must stand in for the millions of books or pieces of art, the millions of voices, that were never made and never heard.
“For lack of what is found there.” Art and literature (both “high” and “low” if we must arrange them in such a hierarchical order) are the means through which most societies make sense of the world, give it a comforting or confounding order. Whether this making takes the form of mythologies we create to explain natural phenomenon, gives a palpable structure to the notion of the divine, or finds voice in a spoken word performance, the fundamental goal is always the same – the urge of the writer, the artist, the maker, to speak, to make sense, to create dialogue or monologue, to espouse a particular ideology or system of beliefs, to challenge, to ask the questions that most other people in the world are not yet ready to, or capable of, asking. Take this expression away and people do die miserably; they lose their sense of who they are as individuals and as a society.
Since I started my work as a Program Director in Spring 2001, I’ve made it my goal to constantly revise, even reinvent, the programs I teach. Some of the frameworks for my programs have remained unchanged: the critical and self-reflective examination of the role of art and the artist in working for social justice and social change; the evaluation of the link between economics and what art gets made (and what art doesn’t); the ascension of some voices within our American society, and the silence of others, and the myriad reasons why; the slippery difference between art and propaganda; and the effect of periods of crisis and calm on the production and evolution of various art forms. I know that this is a rather large laundry list of program frameworks, but when we start to critically examine one of the issues listed above, we’re inevitably drawn into an examination of all of these issues, and then some. City Arts and Writing for Social Change are about connections and integration.
So many of us live our lives in discreet pieces: home, work, school, friends, family. Often, one segment of life would seem to have no connection to the other, but this is a false construct. We’re taught to separate out the multiple threads of our lives as a means to order and control them. What we should do is learn to how to reweave these threads in order to make ourselves whole. I won’t deny that there is a practical necessity in following a hierarchal so that we may set priorities in our lives. First, we must have food, shelter, and adequate medical care, those things necessary to keep our bodies alive so that our minds, our imaginations, our souls, can thrive. But once these basic needs are met, we need to consider the value of less tangible, more ambiguous, needs; needs no less necessary to our survival, but perhaps less measurable in a world that overvalues the concrete, those “products” that we can hold, trade, and sell.
City Arts and Writing for Social Change are both structured around a general framework that explores the power of art and literature in reacting to, critiquing, and working for social justice issues. In City Arts, for instance, our current syllabus is guided by the nine principles that were used in the creation of the International Declaration of Human Rights. In Writing for Social Change, we look at the links (both obvious and subtle) between major historical events and upheavals in American history, and the production of literature during those times. This historical overview is combined with an ongoing analysis of current literature (poetry, fiction, and various forms of nonfiction), and the critique of student work. The goal is to help student writers see where, in the vast literary, social, political, and economic landscape, they are located, so that they can better discern where they are, and where they’d like to be.
Like much good poetry, City Arts and Writing for Social Change deals in ambiguities. Though we examine and critique a wide variety of literature, artwork, actions, and theories, we never quite land on a final, authoritative “truth” of the matter. This is due, largely, to my own belief that there are many kinds of truths, based on myriad perspectives, belief systems, and experiences. We each look at our world through the “lenses” we’re given and the “lenses” we create. I may look at a painting and find it moving, thought provoking, while another viewer may find it dull, and another blasphemous. I might feel alienated by a novel that another reader finds engrossing. The point is that we each must learn what ideologies and experiences have shaped the way we interpret our world, and we must recognize that there are many “worlds” within this one world; some, we’d recognize, others would seem alien. Critical, analytical interpretation, and the various uses of rhetoric, are powerful tools. Governments rise and fall based on their ability to manipulate such tools. In Writing for Social Change and City Arts, we strive to train students to see how such tools are used in a variety of ways by a variety of practitioners. We want students to see through rhetoric, and be able to identify what lies under any particular piece of artistic and cultural production. Ambiguity. It’s a frightening and powerful thing. Perhaps this is why so many people dislike it, and seek out absolutes, “black and white” answers that leave no room for “gray.” In Writing for Social Change and City Arts, “gray” is our stock in trade.
There are many ways in which one can approach social change and social justice. Some people take to the streets to protest. Others use governmental structures in an attempt to legislate change. Some use community organizing as a means to empower people. And some, writers, painters, composers, choreographers, and photographers, use our art forms to work for change. We create work to give voice to our concerns, to embody our senses of fear, anger, dread, joy, and pleasure. We see our work in a non-hierarchal way, on a level playing field with activists, politicians, and organizers. We all have similar goals, but we each approach them using our own forms. City Arts and Writing for Social Change won’t “train” anyone to organize, to lobby, to agitate or legislate. It will introduce students to those within our community who engage in these actions, and it will encourage each student to take on one or all of these roles. Writing for Social Change and City Arts provide the critical and analytical tools for understanding how writers and artists work for social change, and each program strives to help students recognize the connections between one kind of activism and another, between all of the “strands” of their lives. Integration is always the goal.
“For lack of what is found there.” There is great value in being able to identify what is lacking in our society, and an even greater value in trying to understand why, and how, to remedy this lack. Each of us has a unique role to play in the shaping of our society, culture, and world. Writing for Social Change and City Arts challenge each student to identify where she or he sits along a continuum of creation, and to find what methods, approaches, or art forms work best to help every student with a passion for literature, art, and social change.
My Research and Current Projects
In addition to my role as the Program Director for City Arts and Writing for Social Change, my work here at HECUA includes designing and teaching faculty development workshops; organizational grant research and writing; and new program development. HECUA is a very dynamic working environment, and all of us who work here fill a wide variety of roles, depending on the current needs of our students, our consortium members, and our organization.
City Arts and Writing for Social Change are both interdisciplinary seminars, and as the program director, I need to stay current in a number of humanities-based disciplines. Part of my ongoing professional development involves reading and researching widely across the humanities, following academic, artistic, and cultural trends, and investigating how these trends can or should influence the curriculum I design. The syllabus for each program changes a great deal from year to year. I try to base the critical framing questions we use to explore issues and ideas throughout each program on what’s happening in our world now. This can be a very challenging way to craft a course, but it’s immensely rewarding.
At the moment, my reading list includes A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut; The Collected Stories of Andre Dubus; Forms of Water, a novel by Andrea Barrett; Eireanne Lorsung’s new collection of poetry, Music for Landing Planes By; and Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir, Fun Home. I try to stay current with Poets & Writers; The New Yorker; The Atlantic; Art in America; Artnews; and Artforum, as well as a wide variety of literary journals and on-line publications. I’m listening to the music of Bjork; Bach; Radiohead; Marianne Faithfull; David Sylvian; Debussy; and Aimee Mann (among others). Lately, I’ve been watching a variety of TV “reality” shows, trying to figure out what the American public’s fascination with these “real life” productions has to say about who we are as a people.
For several years, I've been collaborating with composer Phil Fried on a series of art songs. Our first collaboration, "The Branch, Blanketed in Ice," is Phil's setting of my poem, "An Alphabet," from my first book, An Alchemy in the Bones. Our second work together blends Phil's music with "L'oiseau," a text I wrote specifically for Phil. Our most recent collaboration is a much larger undertaking. Phil has set my "Minneapolis Suite," a series of six poems from my book, How To. This new work, titled "Six for Minneapolis," was commissioned by Zietgiest New Music Ensemble, and premiered in 2006.
Presentations and Publications
As an artist, I work primarily as a poet. My book publications include An Alchemy in the Bones (New Rivers Press, 1999); To Be Quietly Spoken (Frith Press, 2001); The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s: A Gay Life in the 1940’s (Univ. of MN Press, 2001); How To (Mid List Press, 2004); and This Brightness (Mid List Press, 2007). In the works are Signs of Light, a limited edition artist book with photographs by Susan Page, design by Molly Renda, and my text; and a new collection of poems, currently titled Devil’s Work.
In addition to Signs of Light, recent collaborations include the remounting of Leonora’s Dream, a dance/performance work I wrote with choreographer Cynthia Stevens. The remounted work was staged in August 2006 in the Netherlands. I’m also working on a new photo/text series of broadsides with Susan Page, which explores the aging nude female form and the notion of the “gaze.”
In June 2007, I’ll be visiting Headlands Center for the Arts, an interdisciplinary artists colony just outside San Francisco. In 2005, I was an artist in residence at the Centrum Foundation in Port Townsend, WA.
Here are links to some organizations, artists, and sites you might want to visit:
Minnesota Citizens for the Arts: http://www.mtn.org/mca
Americans for the Arts: http://ww3.artsusa.org
Arts & Letters Daily: http://www.aldaily.com
Frank Theatre: http://www.franktheatre.org
Interact Center for Visual and Performing Arts: http://www.interactcenter.com
Susan Harbage Page – Photographer: http://www.susanharbagepage.com
Forecast Public Artworks: http://www.forecastart.org
Mana – Beyond Belief: http://www.mana-the-movie.com
Why Do You Do What You Do?: http://wdydwyd.com
Mid List Press: http://www.midlist.org
New Rivers Press: http://appserv.mnstate.edu/newriverspress/nrp-2
Frith Press: http://hometown.aol.com/ekphrasis1/press
Composer Phil Fried's Homepage: http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/PHILJANET/phil_home.html
Resume / CV
