Dennis Lee workshop: April 2007 -Review by M. E. Lynch
Dennis Lee
Yesno is a collection of poetry by renowned poet – Dennis Lee. Dennis Lee grapples with the question of earth's and humankind's future. Yesno is a light and playful collection of poems, exploring an ethic of “yesno”, simultaneously embracing pessimism and hope.
Review by Mary Ellen Lynch is a teacher at St. Johns School:
It was great to meet Dennis Lee and listen to him read aloud a selection of his poems. To hear the rhythm of his own voice saying the words of his poems was a real treat. He talked for a while and then took questions from the audience. One first grade teacher was excited to tell her students that she had met him and asked him how long it had taken him to write Alligator Pie . He told the story of how he got the idea for the book. It was 1965 and he had two small girls. He had been reading nursery rhymes to the girls and the words “alligator pie” popped into his head. As he was riding his bike to the market one day he played around with words in his head and when he got home he wrote it down. He would visit this rough draft from time to time and make revisions and nine years later the book was completed. He explained when he writes he goes through several drafts before he gets his poems the way he wants them to be. As he revises he's looking for something more spontaneous. He says nothing is sacred about a first draft. When teaching young students to write poetry he suggests free verse as he said putting structure and rhyming in a poem can be very difficult.
Yesno is a collection of poetry by renowned poet – Dennis Lee. Dennis Lee grapples with the question of earth's and humankind's future. Yesno is a light and playful collection of poems, exploring an ethic of “yesno”, simultaneously embracing pessimism and hope.
Review by Mary Ellen Lynch is a teacher at St. Johns School:
It was great to meet Dennis Lee and listen to him read aloud a selection of his poems. To hear the rhythm of his own voice saying the words of his poems was a real treat. He talked for a while and then took questions from the audience. One first grade teacher was excited to tell her students that she had met him and asked him how long it had taken him to write Alligator Pie . He told the story of how he got the idea for the book. It was 1965 and he had two small girls. He had been reading nursery rhymes to the girls and the words “alligator pie” popped into his head. As he was riding his bike to the market one day he played around with words in his head and when he got home he wrote it down. He would visit this rough draft from time to time and make revisions and nine years later the book was completed. He explained when he writes he goes through several drafts before he gets his poems the way he wants them to be. As he revises he's looking for something more spontaneous. He says nothing is sacred about a first draft. When teaching young students to write poetry he suggests free verse as he said putting structure and rhyming in a poem can be very difficult.
