4 Georgia poets discuss their art for National Poetry Month

Posted April 12, 2021

External Article: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Travis Denton, academic professional in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, associate director of Poetry @ Tech, and McEver Chair in Poetry, contributed his thoughts to the article "4 Georgia Poets Discuss their Art for National Poetry Month," published April 9, 2021 in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Denton, who has been at Georgia Tech for more than a decade and works to expose broader audiences to poetry in his position, spoke to the strategy of getting newcomers interested in the medium.

Excerpt:

The foundations of page poetry and spoken word poetry, I think they’re pretty much the same. They both hinge on figurative language, simile and metaphor. You always want to share with your reader what it was like. They are also both founded in music and sound. You want to cultivate that rhythm, that music and sound. In page poetry and spoken word poetry you want to have concrete images, you want to avoid the abstraction, stick with that concrete. They both deal with who we are, our shared humanness. We can have this discourse through poems.

We have a strong community (of poets and fans) at Georgia Tech and in Atlanta. That happened because of the generous spirit of (the late Tech professor) Thomas Lux in those early days. We had these gifts, and it was important that we share these gifts with the community. Too, it was the types of poetry and poets we bring to Tech. We have a no-boring-poets policy. 

Full article.