Matthew Zapruder
What follows is a question and response from an interview Matthew Zapruder did with Ransom Center Magazine. (If you want to see the full interview go here)
“Marissa Kessenich: What has allowed poetry to survive in this era of immediate satisfaction and short attention spans?
Matthew Zapruder: Poetry has always survived and always will survive as long as humans use language. We need it to try to express the inexpressible. I think the more we are inundated with language that feels commercial and degraded and shallow, the more we crave a use of language that is deep and mysterious and true. I’m a lot more worried about our survival as a nation and species than I am about the survival of poetry.”
Step 1
300 words
Reflect upon Zapruder’s response. Try to explain in your own words why he seems so confident in the need and survival of poetry. What does he mean when he claims “we need [poetry] to try to express the inexpressible”? How does one express something that is inexpressible? What does that even mean? What value does it hold? And what else do you think.
Beyond your response to this quote, please feel free to write about your reflection on this week’s reading from Why Poetry.
And lastly, the Question:
Finish your post by creating a Question for your peers. This questions will serve as a prompt that they can respond to.
The Question should be specific to the reading. Include a quote from the book. The Questions should be at least a full sentence, but you might find yourself writing multiple sentences in order to create a good question (this all counts towards the 300 words).
The Question should not be a simple yes or no kind of thing. It should be analytical, nuanced, and insightful.
If you take notes while you read, it is very possible that your question can be mined from such notes, especially if you ask questions while you read.
