{"id":515,"date":"2024-04-20T09:45:40","date_gmt":"2024-04-20T09:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=515"},"modified":"2024-04-20T09:45:40","modified_gmt":"2024-04-20T09:45:40","slug":"lone-star-listens-a-conversation-with-jenny-browne-san-antonio-poet-laureate-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=515","title":{"rendered":"Lone Star Listens: A conversation with Jenny Browne, San Antonio Poet Laureate 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cOh, it\u2019s a big deal, a great honor,\u201d replies poet Jenny Browne, asked about her appointment as San Antonio\u2019s new poet laureate. \u201cI\u2019ve been working for years in all kinds of capacities in schools, trying to engage people in reading and writing poetry\u2014which I\u2019m passionate about. So I truly appreciate the recognition that the title brings.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Browne succeeds Laurie Ann Guerrero and inaugural laureate Carmen Tafolla in the position. During her two-year appointment, she will receive an annual stipend of $3,500, with the expectation to hold readings, workshops, and educational programs. She also plans to collaborate on a major project about environmental issues because, she says, \u201cwe live in a time of environmental crisis, and the matter is pressing.\u201d She hopes to make a complex issue \u201chuman-sized.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Author of four collections, Glass<\/em>, At Once<\/em>, The Second Reason<\/em>, and Dear Stranger<\/em>, Browne is an associate professor at Trinity University, dedicated to helping her students \u201cdeepen their experience of language.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cPoetry isn\u2019t frivolous or self-indulgent,\u201d she says about teaching the composition of poetry.  \u201cIt helps students make something from their experiences. It is affirming.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Browne earned the MFA in poetry from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was awarded the James Michener Fellowship. Earlier, as an undergraduate, she traveled to Sierra Leone, and it was there that she first composed poetry, partly in response to being a white exchange student in West Africa. She was evacuated just prior to the 1991 coup.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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The 2015 January \/ February edition of American Poetry Review<\/span><\/em> features a new long poem by Browne, based on her ten months spent in Sierra Leone, \u201cWelcome to Freetown.\u201d Here are the closing lines of the poem\u2019s first section:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

My first love was Sierra Leone, her exile, tight jeans<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

& low stringy mangos, her shredded cassava leaf<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

to float the palm oil sea. Such slow laterite roads.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not fast, but I am predictable, freckled<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

and dripping up the hill.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

& so your tribal name will be White Woman Jogging.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Within these lines, Browne nimbly crafts a sensual portrait of Sierra Leone while reckoning with how she is viewed by locals\u2014and by herself\u2014as she struggles to fit in, accepting with humor and grace the name seemingly conferred upon her: \u201cWhite Woman Jogging.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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The ability to adapt, to inhabit new identities, and to write from the perspectives of multiple personae are habits of mind Brown values. In fact, her volume The Second Reason<\/span><\/em> begins with \u201can overarching idea\u201d from the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa: \u201cBe plural like the universe.\u201d Brown remarks that Pessoa \u201cwrote under many pseudonyms and was said to be the four greatest Portuguese poets of his time. Here in the U.S.,\u201d she adds, \u201cWalt Whitman said, \u2018I contain multitudes.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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How does Browne convey to her students the virtue of remaining flexible about self-identity?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s important,\u201d she says, \u201cthat they learn to pay attention to their capacity for experiencing mixed emotions, and to recognize that they may not know what comes next. They should trust themselves to be open to surprise.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Browne\u2019s pedagogical approach is likely influenced by her experience as a community activist. She has taught poetry through the San Antonio Housing Authority, and at the Good Samaritan Center and other venues; more recently, she has worked with the Borderlands Collective to document the experiences of refugees.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Now in her role as a civic poet, Browne would like to create \u201ca shared poetry\u201d that leaves people \u201cmore intimately connected and able to empathize with one another.\u201d She is troubled that \u201cours is an empathy-deprived time. And we focus a lot on anger.\u201d A shared poetry, in contrast, \u201cgives us the opportunity to make our lives or someone else\u2019s life visible. It has a unique way of illuminating our common humanity.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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For more information, visit Browne\u2019s web page: www.jennybrowne.com<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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