A Way With Words

English Professor James Tolan wanted to try something new, and fun, with the students in his Modern Poetry class.

“I wanted to show them a different way to look at poetry by having them create a media piece,” he said. “The real joy is in the sound of the words and I wanted the students to see what kind of sound they could get out of it, which in turn, allows them to appreciate the essential qualities of the poem.”

In celebration of the International Day of the Book, held on-campus in April, Tolan asked his Modern Poetry students if they’d like to do a special rendition of Jabberwocky, a poem from the novel Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, by Lewis Carroll.

Only this time, there was a catch. With assistance from the BMCC Media Center, the students had to create an audio and video component to the famous poem. This gave them the chance to be creative, work in teams, and do something a little different as the semester wound down.

Drawing in the audience

After every group finished recording their stanzas at the Media Center, some students in class generously volunteered their time to enhance the audio tracks with special effects and videos to make it more unified.

“The students were so invested in this project,” recalls Tolan. “Teaching at BMCC is more than just teaching in the classroom. It’s also about teaching the students about the possibilities available to them—for many of them, this was their first time inside a professional recording studio.”

Theatre major Darnale Gaines was assigned stanza one. “At first, I was hoping my group would get stanza two, which actually talks about the Jabberwock, but once I re-read stanza 1, I thought, ‘we could work with this…” he said.

Gaines said his stanza was important because, “ours was the first stanza you’re going to hear on the recording, so the first few seconds are most important—they need to grab the audience’s attention.”

His group combined Michael Jackson’s Thriller, “with an Evanescence vibe under it, so that when you hear it, you’re drawn in.”

Coming together

Student Susan Rosello, also a Theatre major, was assigned stanza four. After her team recorded their voices in the studio, they went to Battery Park City with portable cameras to capture some video content.

“We filmed statues and scenery we thought would mesh with the recording,” said Rosello.

For Rosello, the experience of reciting Jabberwocky aloud, and adding a visual content to the recording, changed her views on poetry. “This assignment showed me that poetry is much more than just stiff wording,” she said. “When the final project was completed, it was so rewarding to see it all come together.”

Darnale Gaines agreed. “It was great to recreate poetry in the studio and add something to spice up the poem,” he said.

Liberal Arts major Alexis Eaves had the second stanza. To get “a feel” for the poem, she watched the Tim Burton version of Alice in Wonderland.  “In the movie, the Jabberwock was depicted as dragonlike; a monster on foot,” she said.

Eaves said in the studio, her group “went with the feeling” they got when they read each line. “The first line was scary…another line we read in kind of a giggly, goofy voice, and in other line, we had animal sounds in the background.”

Like her classmate Darnale Gaines, Eaves’ been writing more poetry since she enrolled in Tolan’s class.  “In this assignment, I liked being able to express my creative side and now I’m writing more poetry of my own.”

Eaves found Modern Poetry class inspiring, and says her classmates “bonded and worked so well together” on the Jabberwocky assignment.  “This is one my favorite classes,” she said.