Last week, I gave the students in one of my classes a very short piece of writing. Some said it looked like a haiku and, perhaps, it bears a passing resemblance to one. I asked the students why that particular piece of writing--which doesn't rhyme, at least not in the way of, say, a ballad or sonnet--was published in a poetry magazine.
At first, there was the silence of students afraid of seeming ignorant. But I reassured them that I wasn't looking for a right answer: I just wanted to know what they thought, and why.
Then, a student pointed out the imagery and figurative language. Another student said the piece of writing didn't rhyme but had "echoes"--internal rhymes. Finally, another student mused, "Well, the writer said it's a poem and the people at the magazine thought it was a poem. So I guess it must be a poem."
I still don't know what to make of that answer. I told him--and the rest of the class--to take a look at Marcel Duchamp's "Bicycle Wheel"--which, in fact, is a bicycle wheel in a bicycle fork mounted upside-down in a stool--and ask themselves whether or not it's a work of art.
Funny I should give that assignment and, soon afterward, come across this:
Police in Springfield, Missouri are investigating what they are calling a "property situation" at a house that's been vacant for some time. In addition to the bicycle wheel hanging from a tree, there are bicycles and parts strewn about the property. Bicycle tires had been thrown through windows. A large trampoline hung from the chimney and a smaller one, with a bicycle on it, topped the house.
When police officers asked a man at the house next door whether he knew what happened, this was his reply: "Bicycles." Other neighbors wouldn't talk to the cops. An employee at a nearby Domino's pizza said she noticed the bike parts, but not the trampolines, a couple of days earlier.
Since no one seems to know how or those bikes and parts ended up on the property, some folks--including a writer for a local newspaper--wonder whether it was an act of vandalism or an art installation.
Hmm...If Marcel Duchamp had done it...
At first, there was the silence of students afraid of seeming ignorant. But I reassured them that I wasn't looking for a right answer: I just wanted to know what they thought, and why.
Then, a student pointed out the imagery and figurative language. Another student said the piece of writing didn't rhyme but had "echoes"--internal rhymes. Finally, another student mused, "Well, the writer said it's a poem and the people at the magazine thought it was a poem. So I guess it must be a poem."
I still don't know what to make of that answer. I told him--and the rest of the class--to take a look at Marcel Duchamp's "Bicycle Wheel"--which, in fact, is a bicycle wheel in a bicycle fork mounted upside-down in a stool--and ask themselves whether or not it's a work of art.
Funny I should give that assignment and, soon afterward, come across this:
Police in Springfield, Missouri are investigating what they are calling a "property situation" at a house that's been vacant for some time. In addition to the bicycle wheel hanging from a tree, there are bicycles and parts strewn about the property. Bicycle tires had been thrown through windows. A large trampoline hung from the chimney and a smaller one, with a bicycle on it, topped the house.
When police officers asked a man at the house next door whether he knew what happened, this was his reply: "Bicycles." Other neighbors wouldn't talk to the cops. An employee at a nearby Domino's pizza said she noticed the bike parts, but not the trampolines, a couple of days earlier.
Since no one seems to know how or those bikes and parts ended up on the property, some folks--including a writer for a local newspaper--wonder whether it was an act of vandalism or an art installation.
Hmm...If Marcel Duchamp had done it...
