Shaun-Dae Clark is a second year student at The George Washington University. She works at Gelman Library and will be studying abroad at the London School of Economics this fall.
-Justice Spencer, Nico Page, Marwa Roshan
The Recitation
The Interview interviewed by Justice Spencer
Justice: Why did you choose the poem? ("To Be in Love," by Gwendolyn Brooks)
Shaun-Dae: I chose the poem because it is about the power of love, to be completely cliché. Though I’ve never been in love, it makes me excited (and kind of scared), about the prospect of it. Though it indicates the heartbreak and agony often associated with love, the blissful and intimate experience of being in love is emphasized, and that’s enough to make me dream. I think everyone yearns for that euphoric feeling that brightens your overall outlook at life and allows you to empathize to the greatest extent, even when the crushing blows of lost love are your reality. It somehow has the power to make us still chase it, and I think that is beautiful, and perfectly transcribed in “To Be in Love.”
Justice: How does it fit into your everyday love?
Shaun-Dae: I’m pretty obsessed with the idea of being loved and loving someone else. Every day, consciously or otherwise, I wonder if I’ll meet my person. And every day I don’t, my heart breaks a little bit more. So I listen to love songs, watch romance movies, and read poems about love that all keep my faith in the prospect. It’s evaded me for far too long.
Justice: What connection do you see between music and poetry?
Shaun-Dae: Music is poetry. In the same way poetry tells a story and/or expresses or evokes a feeling, music does as well. My go to, whenever I feel sad, happy, or heartbroken, is the accompanying music and I imagine those who write and read poetry look for that same therapeutic feeling.
Vice Provost and Dean of Student Affairs Peter Konwerski Reads a Poem
As Dean of Student Affairs, Dr. Konwerski is the chief student affairs officer for GW, managing a diverse staff of education professionals responsible for academic success; student academic engagement; parent engagement; and wellness, education, and prevention for GW undergraduate, graduate, and professional students. In addition to his administrative work, Dr. Konwerski holds academic appointments in the Graduate School of Education and Human Development, and the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Konwerski earned his bachelor’s degree in human services, master's degree in higher education administration, and doctorate in education and human development from GW.
-Sahara Lake, Damini Kunwar, and Scott Dillon
The Recitation
The Interview interviewed by: Sahara Lake, Damini Kunwar, and Scott Dillon
Poets: What is your favorite poem?
Peter Konwerski: I don’t know, that’s a good question. My sister was a huge Shel Silverstein fan and I remember, there’s a poem about like, my sister…and if you look it up, it’s a really sarcastic poem, “my sister for sale” or something like that, if you have siblings you understand. Then, if I think about historically, I probably read more Whitman and probably more American poetry. In courses, there is the ability to digest “what is the meaning” and “what do the words say?” “What do the words really mean?” and also “What is the symbolism?”. I was not an English major but in the courses I’ve taken, that was the opportunity I had to delve into it a little bit more.
Poets: What are some of your experiences with poems?
Peter Konwerski: It’s interesting, I think today everything is so much more digital; there is more access in some way to the arts and poetry broadly. I think poetry and lyrics often align…you think of a great rapper or a great spoke-word poet. One of my favorite poets, you all might know her, she is an GW alum (Elizabeth Acevedo), when you hear it, it’s different from when you read it, and I think we are visual, and auditory, and also being able to watch [helps]. I think about the dynamic nature of art, not just poetry and everything is colliding. I don’t just think of it like great poetry, but great writing, which has more of a lyrical cadence or more of a musical feel to it. That collision of it…it’s on social media, it’s on the radio, and we see it all over.
Poets: Do you have a favorite song or lyrics?
Peter Konwerski: I don’t know if I have a favorite song. I like a lot of instrumental stuff, like jazz, part of that is the beat and the tempo. I actually listen to more, you guys will laugh but, what I consider classic rock, which goes back to Elton John, Steve Miller Band, Crosby, Stills and Nash. I’m not into hip-hop or more modern techno music, but I recognize a lot of that music. But, for example, in the (human services) classes that I teach, there is an exercise I give where I have people give reflections on the city, or spirituality or activism. [From that], I get amazing poems, lyrics and songs and students are pulling a song from Beyoncé or Kanye West. The influences I get now as an administrator or as a faculty member, are from the students in a more contemporary society…because, students will say to us, this artist is speaking about poverty, injustice or social action. Some of the stuff that happened with Ferguson this fall, we saw this great dialogue, often times through poetry or spoken word.
Poets: Have you ever written poetry of your own?
Peter Konwerski: I mean probably when I was a kid [laughs] but no, I haven’t. But sometimes, in a way, I think it’s good, in any exercise, to use your left and right brain. When you use a different part of your brain…like a friend/faculty member at Corcoran and when you actually have to use some creative expression, it’s good to get out of your mind set of saying “Oh, I typically write a proposal or a memo” as oppose to “Oh, let me think about this a little more creatively.” Creativity is something that affects all of us. When you think of things that cross the total student experience, like being creative, and being a critical thinker and being able to problem solve, those are bigger picture skills that people want when you graduate. [You want to able to say] “I can think critically, I’m a good collaborator”, which means you probably can be creative.
Poets: Do you think GWU can benefit from poetry?
Peter Konwerski: Yes, I think in the context of creativity and the arts. I think people at universities appreciate the variety. We are not set on “this is only my discipline,” [points to Sahara], you’ve studied Political Science, and there is part of political science that is statistics and numbers and part of it that is theory, and you have to appreciate both. A lot of [having a] well-rounded, liberal arts education is being able to appreciate the value of sciences, languages, theory, practice…they all matter. And you might gravitate towards one but you can’t do one without the other. Like if you are fixing a problem today, you can’t fix the problem without math or technology even if you’re building a road. There are things that go into that “what tools do you need to build it?” or “how do you measure the space that you need?”…you have to use all those things together.
Poets: Can you give us a reading of your favorite poem?
Poet Sally Wen Mao treats words like clay. She molds them into new ideas, even as they retain their original meaning. Language is shaped and adapted in her hands. She also plays with a variety of forms, including field notes, and travelogues. The results are original, ironic and fresh. Her debut work, Mad HoneySymposium was described by Publishers Weekly as "linguistically dexterous and formally astute" with a strong connection to varied sources including "news clippings, Greek and Roman history, and Chinese myths" and maintains a "rich, deliberate emotionality and musicality."
Mao was born in Wuhan, China and raised in Boston. Her work has been featured in Colorado Review, Guernica, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, Third Coast, West Branch, Washington Square, Poetry, The Missouri Review, Black Warrior Review and other publications. She is the winner of the 2012 Kinereth Gensler Award and a Publishers Weekly Top Ten Pick of Fall 2014. Her work has been anthologized in The Best American Poetry 2013 and she has received fellowships from Kundiman, Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, Hedgebrook, and Saltonstall Foundation. She is currently a professor of Asian American Poetics at Hunter College.
Mao is the Jenny McKean Moore author for April. The GW English Department will be hosting a reading by her in Gelman, Room 702 on Friday, April 24 at 7:30 pm.
Here is an example of her work:
Lessons on Lessening
In the rigmarole of lucky living, you tire
of the daily lessons: Sewing, Yoga, Captivity.
Push the lesson inside the microwave.
Watch it plump and pop and grow larval
with losses. Watch it shrink like shrikes
when they dodge out of this palatial
doom. On the sky's torn hemline, this horizon,
make a wish on Buddha's foot. How to halve,
but not to have--how to spare someone
of suffering, how to throw away the spare
key saved for a lover that you don't have, save yourself from the burning turret
with the wind of your own smitten hip.
Do you remember how girlhood was--a bore
born inside you, powerless? How you made
yourself winner by capturing grasshoppers
and skewering them? You washed a family
of newts in the dry husked summer, wetted
them with cotton swabs before the vivisection.
That's playing God: to spare or not to spare.
In the end you chose mercy, and dropped
each live body into the slime-dark moat.
Today is a study in being a loser. The boyfriend
you carved out of lard and left in the refrigerator
overnight between the milk and chicken breasts.
Butcher a bed, sleep in its wet suet for a night.
Joke with a strumpet, save the watermelon
rinds for the maids to fry in their hot saucepans.
