This is the fourth spring semester poetry edition of Liberal Arts Voices featuring this year’s Penn State Laureate, poet and Professor of English and Womens’ Studies, Robin Becker. Throughout the spring, Liberal Arts Voices will be collaborating with Penn State Live to cover the poems and work of Professor Becker.
In this podcast Professor Becker joins Dean Long; English major Natalie Kovak; and English graduate students Leah Huizar and William Woolfit to discuss Professor Becker’s poem “Venetian.” You can read the full version of “Venetian” on Penn State Live.
Professor Becker begins the podcast by describing her strategy in writing this poem. In particular, she discusses her attempt to use descriptive language to evoke the visually rich city of Venice. The group focuses on how the poetic imagery creates a sense of an unstable Venetian landscape. This instability is further emphasized as the romantic relationship between the two travelers unravels throughout the course of the poem.
We invite you to respond to this poem or to the question that Professor Becker asks at the conclusion of her poem: Can you remember a time when a holiday or vacation turned sour, revealing some underlying problems or unresolved issues? In what ways did the visual details (of the trip and place) “reflect back” at you the unsettled feelings?
Liberal Arts Voices: Robin Becker’s “Venetian”
To subscribe to Liberal Arts Voices through iTunes, click here.
To watch a video of Professor Becker reading this poem or to read the actual poem, visit Penn State Live.
We encourage all of our listeners to write to us with comments, questions, or suggestions at laus@la.psu.edu. We may even respond to these comments on the next episode of Liberal Arts Voices.