{"id":1085,"date":"2016-02-28T20:52:14","date_gmt":"2016-02-29T01:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/?p=1085"},"modified":"2016-03-06T22:26:03","modified_gmt":"2016-03-07T03:26:03","slug":"reading-zaki-week-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/?p=1085","title":{"rendered":"Reading Zake: Week 6"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This semester, I\u2019ve been a frequent commuter for work, and have often felt myself at a loss for focus, struggling to let go of frenzied thoughts between where I\u2019ve been and where I\u2019m going. Spying Shange\u2019s poem, \u201cWhat Do You Believe A Poem Shd Do?,\u201d as a part of the MTA\u2019s Arts for Transit collection hit me like a wave of present. It, quite literally, \u2018stopped me in my tracks.\u2019 Seeing, reading and experiencing the poem in transit reminded me of the beauty in mundane rituals, like travel and movement. To me, the poem seems to celebrate leaning in to the challenge of letting go of haphazard thoughts and committing to the experience and gestures of the present moment.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/2015Shang-b.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1086\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1086\" src=\"http:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/2015Shang-b-288x300.jpg\" alt=\"2015Shang-b\" width=\"288\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/2015Shang-b-288x300.jpg 288w, https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/2015Shang-b.jpg 652w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 288px) 100vw, 288px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Re-discovering the poem has made me reflect on how magic in the mundane has the power to \u201chappen to you like cold water or a kiss\u201d\u2014just like a poem. I find Shange\u2019s poems somewhat impossible to separate from rhythm, gesture and movement, and so I love reading this poem on the subway, committing to the words and the motion of transit. And in the midst of travel, I am reminded of Shange\u2019s quote: \u201cit is possible to start a phrase with a word and end with a gesture.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Poems-in-Motion.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1087\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1087\" src=\"http:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Poems-in-Motion-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"Poems-in-Motion\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Poems-in-Motion-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Poems-in-Motion-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Poems-in-Motion-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Poems-in-Motion-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Poems-in-Motion.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve talked a lot about how Shange\u2019s choreopoems resonate beyond pages of text and demand a degree of physical engagement. Seeing \u201cWhat Do You Believe A Poem Shd Do?\u201d on the subway makes me wish that poetry be incorporated into other mundane rituals inherently in motion. A few questions I\u2019ve been thinking about: How can poetry inform our everyday movements? How does poetry have the power to inspire and shape the way we experience our rituals?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This semester, I\u2019ve been a frequent commuter for work, and have often felt myself at a loss for focus, struggling to let go of frenzied thoughts between where I\u2019ve been and where I\u2019m going. Spying Shange\u2019s poem, \u201cWhat Do You Believe A Poem Shd Do?,\u201d as a part of the MTA\u2019s Arts for Transit collection [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,310],"tags":[290,345,346,344],"class_list":["post-1085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogposts","category-reading-zake","tag-magic-in-the-mundane","tag-mta-art-for-transit","tag-transit-and-movement","tag-what-do-you-believe-a-poem-shd-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1085"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1100,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085\/revisions\/1100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}