This is the first of several special episodes of Liberal Arts Voices featuring this year’s Penn State Laureate, poet and Professor of English and Womens’ Studies, Robin Becker. Throughout the fall semester, 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; CLA Enrichment Coordinator and PSU English alum, Ashley Tarbet; English major Natalie Kovak; and English grad student William Woolfit to discuss Professor Becker’s poem “Solar.” You can read the full version of “Solar” on Penn State Live.
Professor Becker explains how the time she spent in the Taos desert inspired the theme of this poem. She explains how she was interested in the idea of the comparison between our experience with and love for a physical place and the way that we love an individual person. The group discusses how the qualities of the desert – the weather, plants, animals – bring to light an interesting kind of personification of a landscape.
They go on to contemplate the question that Professor Becker asks at the end of her poem: If you were to personify a landscape as a beloved teacher, what landscape would you choose? What qualities would you examine or celebrate? We invite you to respond to this question and to the podcast in the comments section below.
Liberal Arts Voices: Robin Becker’s “Solar”
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To watch a video of Professor Becker reading this poem or to read more about it, 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.