====== Documentary Poetry ======
Documentary poetry captures specific examples in history and illustrates these events in words, images, sound, video, and other media.
Poets often take a first person perspective of a person at the event or may act as observer and use a third person voice.
The poems record grief, lives, and honor voices of those who can no longer speaka nd often could not speak when alive.
===== Qualities of Documentary Poetry =====
* Creative process connected withand inspired by primary sources
* Poet’s intention is to represent tone/voice in primary sources authentically
* Creative works integrate primary sources, sometimes responding to documents unseen by the reader, other times arrangingexcerpts from primary sourcesto create something new, or integrating source excerptswith original poetry
* Purpose is to bear witness/raise awareness/incite social change, reflecting the role of poet as engaged citizen, journalist, historian, witness, and advocate
source: [[http://www.poetryriver.org/uploads/2/5/5/4/25542640/str14_docpoetry.pdf|http://www.poetryriver.org/uploads/2/5/5/4/25542640/str14_docpoetry.pdf]]
===== Mentor Texts =====
Barrett Browning, Elizabeth. “[[http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172981|The Cry of the Children.]]” 1844. Found online here:
Dawes, Kwame. “[[http://www.livehopelove.com/|Hope: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica]].”
[[http://pulitzercenter.org/features/voices-haiti|Voices of Haiti Project]]
Jess, Tyehimba. “[[http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TedxNashvlle-Tyehimba-Jess-Sync|Syncopated Sonnets: TED Talk.]]”
Reznikoff, Charles. [[https://media.sas.upenn.edu/Pennsound/authors/Reznikoff/Holocaust_1975/Reznikoff-Charles_14_Children-3_Holocaust_NYC_12-21-75.mp3|“Children 3”]].
Rukeyser, Muriel. [[http://murielrukeyser.emuenglish.org/writing/the-book-of-the-dead/|The Book of the Dead]]. 1938. Found online here:
Trethewey, Natasha. [[https://vimeo.com/6362681|“Believer.” Congregation]].
source: Heidi Renée Aijala
===== Reading Documentary Poetry =====
[[https://atthewellcrw3.wordpress.com/2013/08/06/knowledge-natasha-trethewey/|Knowledge]] by Natasha Tretheway (CW: Nude cadaver)
Much of Tretheway's work derives from images. Whether from pictures, documents, or memories these poems draw on snapshots of history. When you read the [[https://wellcomelibrary.org/item/b11833798#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0|history of the image]] Tretheway used (CW:suicide, body image) the poem becomes more real.
* Teaching Ideas
* Have students look for elements of gender, power, and tone?
* Interrogate how Tretheway treats beauty. How does this treatment affect structure? word choice?
*
===== Writing Documentary Poetry =====
[[http://www.poetryriver.org/uploads/2/5/5/4/25542640/str14_docupoetry_slides_pr.pdf|Side Show]]
* Choose an historical event OR
* Choose an historical photo or different source
* Research the Event
* Brainstorm words, phrases or feelings from the source
* You can make a graphic organizer like a tchart and one side write what you want to describe and on the left write a stanza.
* Optionally incorporate direct quotes
===== Student Examples ======