On this special edition of the Supercast in honor of National Poetry Month, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey talks with Utah’s Poet Laureate, Paisley Rekdal. This U of U professor, writer and poet shares her thoughts on how parents can support a child’s budding passion for poetry and how that passion can grow and change lives.
Ms. Rekdal invites everyone to explore Utah authors and their creative work by visiting the Mapping Literary Utah website ([ Ссылка ]) .
Audio Transcription
Superintendent:
Welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. Throughout the month of April, people across the country have been celebrating National Poetry Month. On this episode of the Supercast, we are celebrating as well. I had the unique opportunity to speak with Utah's Poet Laureate, Paisley Rekdal. She shared some great ideas on how parents can support the budding writer and poet in their own children. First, let's find out how Paisley Rekdal became Utah's Poet Laureate and where we can go to enjoy some poetry by Utah poets. Paisley, thank you very much for joining us.
Paisley:
Thank you for having me.
Superintendent:
I just want to dive right in. I'm a former English teacher. I'm really quite excited to be talking with Utah's Poet Laureate. I don't get nearly the time that I would like to spend reading poetry. I used to read a lot and had my kids write a lot when I was teaching. Can you just start by telling us what first made you interested in poetry?
Paisley:
Well, it was funny because I became interested in poetry in high school and I didn't think I was going to be interested in poetry at all. I was more interested in visual arts. I would draw things and make maps and collages. And then I was taking an English class where I'd always done really, really well. And for the first time I was getting a B, and the teacher said she would give anyone extra credit if they submitted a poem to this citywide poetry contest. And if you win a prize, you will get, you know, an extra A in the grade book. And so I thought, well, why not? So I wrote a poem and it won and I actually could not believe that it won. I thought no way it could because it was my very first poem.
And I think it's probably a terrible way to get started because it makes you think that poetry is nothing but awards and claim. So the rest of my life definitely taught me that it's not that easy, but it got me interested. I thought, well, why did I win? What did I do? That was so good. And my mother was a former English major. And so she had all these books around the house. She just let me read whatever I wanted to, which sometimes worked out really well, and sometimes didn't.
Superintendent:
That's fantastic. And what I love about that story is that there was availability. There were books of poetry readily available. And so you just picked them up. I remember reading books of my parents the same way, the cover intrigued me or the title. And I just started reading and I think that's an important point.
Paisley:
Books in the house, for sure. Yeah.
Superintendent:
Right, right. I'm going to tell my wife that because she really would like me to get rid of more of my books.
Paisley:
You never know what's going to happen. Kids get so sucked into all of these books and it's true. Sometimes it's just the cover.
Superintendent:
You're a professor at the University of Utah. You're a writer, obviously Poet Laureate. How do you find balance between those two and what different pleasures do you get from each of those?
Paisley:
Well, I love teaching actually. I really do. I don't love grading. I think everyone can agree that grading is not as fun as the teaching and working in the classroom with the students. But I get a lot of inspiration actually from some of the things that I teach to my students. Some of the conversations that I have with my students, I get insights into the books that we're reading, things that I never would have thought of. I've got some really good students. And then with the writing, I used to be a better, I'll have to admit. I used to be a lot better about being able to write a little bit every day, but actually with being a Poet Laureate now, a lot of my time has gone into different public projects. So it's been tougher to get a creative time just for myself. But that being said, I must say some of the projects that have been offered to me were so interesting that I enjoyed doing the research and I enjoy doing the writing. I wrote a book length multimedia poem about the transcontinental railroad which, trust me, I never, ever, ever thought about writing about unless I had been commissioned to write about the transcontinental.
Superintendent:
Well, that's the thing about a creative project. It can open you up to things that you weren't expecting would touch you. And I'm sure that happened with that project. Speaking of your writing, did your mom really me...
