After cancellation due to COVID-19 last spring, K-State’s annual Open House is back for 2021 — and K-State English is ready!
Our theme is “Poetry in Motion” in honor of National Poetry Month and the virtual space for this year’s Open House:
What makes the heart of a poem tick? Why do its rhymes resonate? What rhythms make its feet — and ours — move?
Join us for 5-mins lightning talks on well-known and newly discovered poems that help us appreciate, in honor of National Poetry Month, poetry in motion.
Our Poet-in-the-Box will also be available for virtual requests all day Friday, with poems delivered to your inbox on Saturday.
As of Thursday April 8, you can view our lightning talks. These short videos will remain available throughout Open House (and in the weeks ahead) to view on demand:
Kimball Smith on “Love Calls Us” by Richard Wilbur
Mark Crosby on “The Tyger” by William Blake
Elizabeth Dodd on “Why They Love Us” by R.S. Gwynn
Spencer Young (MA ’22) on “The Moment When I Saw a Pelican Devour” by Paige Lewis
Karin Westman on the verse novel Mary’s Monster by Lita Judge
As of Friday April 9 at 9:00am CDT, our Poet-in-the-Box is taking requests in a virtual space to write poems to order on a topic of your choice.
Submit your request starting at 9:00am.
The poet(s) will be taking requests until 8:00pm CDT on Friday. (Only one request per person, so start thinking now about the key words and topic you’d like to submit!)
Here are two of the poems that our virtual poets shared in response to submitted prompts: “The Reading Journey” (prompts: reading and cats) and “There Is You” (prompts: Matthew, “He’s my bf”),
We hope you enjoy “Poetry in Motion” — and all of the Open House activities!
— Karin Westman, Associate Professor and Department Head
K-State English 