Room 40 in Irvin\u2014a small, compact space\u2014was filled completely on the night of Wednesday, March 28th. Students piled in, resorting to standing around the room. The students and faculty talked loudly, everyone waiting with a nervous energy for the poets to begin. Using this energy, Mar\u00eda Auxiliadora \u00c1lvarez and Keith Tuma read their respective poems, causing the audience to drift away into feelings of contemplation, sympathy, and grief, and to be startled into laughter. Both poets left the audience with more questions than answers, like any good poet does, and they both transformed room 40 into something much more than a classroom.<\/p>\n
Dr. \u00c1lvarez read first. One of her students managed a slide-show for her on the projector screen that displayed English translations, for Dr. \u00c1lvarez\u2019s poetry was spoken and originally written in Spanish. Even though I grew up in a predominantly Spanish speaking area in Tucson, Arizona, I have never known Spanish. I took Latin in high school, so when I hear Spanish I stop listening\u2014my brain shutting down. This happened for the first half of Dr. \u00c1lvarez\u2019s poems because, for me, I was transfixed by the English translation, trying to make sense of her poems\u2019 forms and images.<\/p>\n
But as I started to listen to Dr. \u00c1lvarez\u2019s voice when she read the poem \u201cStanding Stones,\u201d I realized that I could hear a meter, and I was amazed at the emotion that sound gave to the poem. In \u201cStanding Stones,\u201d the concrete form of the poem helps the audience to see and feel the image of water that Dr. \u00c1lvarez creates. Dr. \u00c1lvarez writes, \u201cIf you come to its shore if its shore comes to you Enter its \/ night \/ and let yourself \/ sink\u201d (lines 3-6). The form puts \u201cand let yourself\u201d into the middle of the line, and \u201csink\u201d is placed to the far right on the next line, suggesting a floating or sinking motion. What made this image so powerful for me was her voice, for the rhythm of the Spanish created motion, reinforcing the sinking image. Dr. \u00c1lvarez\u2019s \u201c Standing Stones\u201d reconnected me to my childhood in Tucson, and I reflected on my past through the image of sinking, recalling my grandfather through the narrator of the poem. I remembered him telling me to \u201cgo through \/ suffering\u201d in his own way.<\/p>\n
I had Dr. Tuma as my first English professor at Miami, and it was a joy to be in his class. Dr. Tuma has a way with irony and humor in his teaching that made learning American Literature that much more enjoyable. His poems were no exception. His three-line tankas went back and forth, from broad topics to interactions between Tuma and his cat. Each new stanza ended with a play on words, a subtle irony, or a hidden humor that kept the audience laughing for the entire reading. An example of this would be a poem that referred to a worker taking a smoke break behind his workplace. In the poem, the workplace is a \u201cdesert\u201d and the worker is the only one with a camel.<\/p>\n
As a teacher, Dr. Tuma focused on ambiguities within texts, and as a poet, he\u2019s no different. His work made me realize that writing poetry is more than an act; rather, being a poet is a way to look at the world. A poet has the ability to relate objects and stories to one another; a poet lives uniquely, illustrating the world in a way that everyone else would never think of doing. His teaching and his poetry are one in the same; he\u2019s a teacher and a poet who questions structures in society and points out ironies and ambiguities that most of us miss. I remember in class once he laughed at someone for asking him if he wrote love poems, saying that \u201cpoetry is much more than a stupid love letter.\u201d His poems push the bounds of language, and he showed the audience in room 40 of Irvin what it means to be a poet\u2014someone who uses language to its fullest capability to add a new perspective to his or her audience.<\/p>\n
Tim Doren
\nEnglish Department Ambassador<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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