Karen Ponzio Photos
Abiodun Oyewole.
Park of the Arts became a poetry garden on Friday night as famed poet and teacher Abiodun Oyewole led a poetry workshop for grateful attendees as part of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas.
A founding member of the legendary group The Last Poets, Oyewole is also an author and musician. His record Love Has No Seasons played over the speakers as guests wandered into the park, situated behind Neighborhood Music School and Creative Arts Workshop on Audubon Street, and found their socially distanced seats among the trees, the warm air cooled by gentle breezes.
“Get closer,” Oyewole said to the attendees after being introduced by Arts and Ideas tours program manager Denise Santisteban. He mentioned that he had friends in New Haven that were “very dear to me,” including Elm City LITfest’s IfeMichelle Gardin, who he called “a mover and a shaker and a mover in New Haven.” He then mentioned that his music had been playing prior to the event.
“When I was younger, I thought I was the rebirth of Johnny Mathis,” he said with a smile.
He spoke of poetry in a way that was a poem in and of itself. “Poetry is not just words on paper. Its like a spice you keep in your cabinet. Poetry is like flavor. Any great writer, from Richard Wright to Steinbeck to Faulkner, must employ poetry. It’s that little can of something in your cabinet that, when you add it, life becomes a whole different flavor.”
“Poetry is in the way you walk,” he added. “Dancing is poetry in motion. Basketball is an African dance. That’s a globe in their hands and all their moves are poetry. Poetry is a fine art that everyone has. If you learn and live, you are a poet. It speaks to the love in all of us.”
Oyewole spoke of how being in quarantine brought us all “a little closer to ourselves.” He himself wrote a book of poetry called Naked. The cover featured the image of a painting that he also created while in quarantine.
“We feel so alone, but alone is okay. We don’t want to be lonely. There’s a difference between being alone and being lonely,” he said.
Oyewole began the workshop portion of the event with a pledge, one that he created one day when a young girl noticed that he didn’t say the Pledge of Allegiance, so he created one on the spot. He said he would end the event with the same pledge. Teaching the words to the audience that he wanted them to repeat, he then sang the pledge as a call and response, with the audience adding the words at the end of each line where he asked. After a discussion with a few members of the group about which line was their favorite, it was time to write.
Oyewole gave the group a prompt, telling them they would each write a poem based on their element — water, air, fire or earth — as determined by their zodiac sign. After going through each element and their coordinating signs, Oyewole told each participant to “become your element” (for example, “I am fire”). The group then had 20 minutes to write a poem, after which each participant was invited to the mic to read their poem to the group. It was kept informal. Some came up readily, some chose not to come up or share, and some required more encouragement.
The poetry was of all shapes and forms, covering a variety of topics. Some focused on current events. Some used more metaphor. A husband used his poem as a shoutout to his wife, who was there with him.
After each one, Oyewole smiled and shared what stood out for him in each piece. He enjoyed them all and even at one point asking Santisteban if the participants could share her email so they could send her their pieces to be compiled into an anthology for the event. Santisteban happily obliged.
This reporter happily wrote and shared her own poem:
I am Air
I rush over the earth and lift the leaves,
Embrace the trees,
Enter and exit your lungs as you
Laugh, cry, and sleep.
When I am still, you almost don’t notice me.
I can bring a chill to your bones or
Be as warm and close as a lover you’ve always wanted to know
But I try to keep moving.
Rest is not my best look.
I’d rather help feed anyone and anything that needs me
But sometimes
To raise a kite up above and see a child smile is enough.
I am Air.
It was the first time I had written a poem to a prompt in a good long while, and it felt refreshing, the atmosphere almost custom-made for the event. Even Oyewole mentioned that this was the “perfect environment,” where “the poetry is natural.” His love of teaching was resplendent throughout the event, but especially during the readings. His encouragement felt both deeply personal and highly profound, and each participant who shared seemed to leave the stage with both a smile and a sense of pride as well as community.
Oyewole offered book recommendations for the group, including Cane by Jean Toomer, for showing the “natural marriage between poetry and prose,” and The Prophet by Kahlil Gilbran, about which he said, “if you have the Bible in your house you need to have The Prophet next to it.”
The event ended as Oyewole had promised it would, with the repeating of the pledge (which can be seen in the video). Everyone joined in and was left beaming and blessed. Poetry had been written, shared, and intertwined. It felt almost impossible to not want to write 10 more pieces under the umbrella of leaves in this not-so-secret garden.
And on that note, here is one more of Oyewole’s teachings, this one about writer’s block, that will hopefully help all those would-be poets and used-to-be poets out there: “I don’t believe in it,” he said. “If nothing comes to your mind, write about nothing. Make nothing something. Find poetry in everything you see and do.”
The International Festival of Arts and Ideas runs until June 27. More information about the festival’s events can be found on its website.
