Al’s update for Wednesday of ModPo week 2

by Al Filreis · September 18, 2019

Good morning. Autumn has arrived in Philly! Makes me feel that we should be in week 2 of ModPo. Oh, and we are!

Wednesday of week 2! Here are a few notes/reminders:

WEBCAST TODAY. Yes, at noon we will convene our second webcast of the season. That’s five hours from the time I’m sending this message. Click HERE at noon to watch us live. Call us at 610-616-3208. Post comments & questions for us in the special thread HERE. Tweet at and with us at @modpopenn and use the hashtag #modpolive .

FIRST ESSAY. Many ModPo people are trying their hand at writing essays (on a Dickinson poem) in response to the first ModPo 2019 essay assignment. HERE is the poem and the assignment.

PODCAST FEATURES MOLLY AND ANNA. Jamie-Lee Josselyn of Kelly Writers House hosts a podcast in which writers who write about the early loss of a parent present their writings and converse with other writers who respond. The newest episode features ModPo’s Molly O’Neill reading her writing about the death of her father, with Anna Strong Safford as one of the respondents. A previous episode features Anna reading a poem about the death of her father, with Mollly among the respondents. You can listen to these episodes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dead-parents-society/id1372504018

COMMUNITY COLLABORATIVE CLOSE READINGS. Click “Resources” in the left-side meny of any ModPo page and then click “CCCR.” Or click THIS LINK. You will see another supplemental, parallel syllabus ModPo provides you. It consists of videos recorded by ModPo people around the world, gathering together in various combinations to do collaborative close readings of ModPo poems. Watch some of these! If you are inspired, please plan to record your own video, post to YouTube or another video site, and email us at modpo@writing.upenn.edu to tell us about it. To say that we believe in the power and efficacy of collaborative reading is an understatement. CCCR is humanistic interpretive crowdsourcing at its most interesting, I think.

Office hours for the rest of week 2 are posted and linked below. We love it when you stop by and chat with us during our office hours!

—Al