First Poetry Reading, Debate and Comm Club Meetings

Touro Communication Club #15
Last week was very busy. Not only did the Debate Team meet on Wednesday, but some of us went to the English department’s first poetry reading. Summaries of both events follow. This week, we are back to our regular once-a-week schedule.

Watch the interactive video from the Feb. 21 Democratic Debate and Analyze the transcript by clicking here.


THE CLUB WILL MEET ON WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20 AT 1 PM IN ROOM 610 @ 50 WEST 23rd AVENUE – NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY. – JUST CURIOSITY.
Once again, we will give everyone hands-on experience (actually “voice-on”) with Reading Aloud. Actors know how important it is to use your voice effectively, but regular people – like us – can learn the same techniques to improve your speaking voice. We’ll start again with the telephone books and the various aspects of “Paralinguistics” (that’s the technical term for the ways the voice is used). Then we’ll add an emotion or two and end with you reading the poetry selection you brought with you.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2008 – THE DEBATE TEAM WILL MEET AT 1 PM IN ROOM 610 @ 50 WEST 23RD STREET
Hopefully, we can apply some of the delivery strategies of Michelle Obama to our affirmative and negative debate briefs on gun control. Continue your research on gun control in New York State. We will phrase a proposition and start lining up evidence on both sides. We will also being practice cross-examining each other. Both Richard Green and David Nussbaum will serve as task masters for the questioning.

WHAT HAPPENED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2008 –DEBATE TEAM MEETING?
Three newcomers joined us for the first time: Kattey Mayrose (who has had debate experience), Theresa Wright and Kazi Fathath. They were welcomed by Libio Carcasses, Tetyana Averkina, Drani Gabu and James Millner. English faculty member Carl Yearwood returned to join Richard Green, David Nussbaum and Hal Wicke. Professor Yearwood was one of the presenters at the Poetry Festival the next day. (More later.)

As promised, Richard began the session by showing the 1/31/08 Delaware campaign speech of Michelle Obama, wife of Presidential candidate, Senator Barak Obama. The speech was about an hour long, perhaps too long to maintain our interest, but very fascinating to those Obama-fans who listened first hand.

Watch Michelle Obama's Speech By Clicking Here.

The “feeling” reactions varied from “inspiring” to “ok” to analytical reactions questioning Ms. Obama’s evidence. Then we began a superficial analysis of the speech itself, beginning with her repeated theme of society’s “shifting the bar” to achieve success. Kattey questioned Ms. Obama’s assertion how her husband could raise the income of the middle class and raise taxes at the same time. Since both Kattey’s parents are in the military, she also questioned how Obama would cut the number of troops in Iraq and still maintain adequate troop strength to support their mission.

The tone of the speech was motivational – to get people to vote for her husband. Ms. Obama used a lot of personal anecdotes to demonstrate how the upbringing of both Ms. Obama and Senator Obama was similar to that of their audience. Some people questioned the accuracy of her evidence since they found that their Ivy League education was elite and unlike that of “regular folks.” The propaganda device Ms. Obama was using, among others, is called “Plain Folks” – I’m just like you – whether she is or not.

Another propaganda device Ms. Obama used was “the straw man.” The speaker who uses this device cleverly raises an issue of dubious or arguable value and then proceeds to show how she (or her husband) would easily defeat or solve the problem. Examples included references to Hillary Clinton’s health plan and John McCain’s opposing view of getting out of Iraq.

Hal reminded everybody of Aristotle’s three aspects of rhetoric (persuasion) – logos (logic); pathos (emotion) and ethos (personal character). Everybody agreed that Ms. Obama’s speech was dominated by pathos and ethos with a little logos thrown in to give people a sense that what the speaker was saying was “logical.”

People seemed to think that the session was very interesting and valuable as the Presidential campaign gets closer to a two-person race. To be honest, however, this analysis is only the most superficial compared to the rigorous analysis necessary for debate. But at least, we got our feet wet!

We have further opportunities to watch Obama and Clinton in action in the upcoming debates. As we listen – and that’s the key skill – we have to listen critically to discover the credibility of their positions, especially now that John McCain is the Republican front-runner.

Recently I sent you an issue of FactCheck.org highlighting several campaign issues. FactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. It is one of the most prestigious schools of communication in the nation. Its Dean, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, shows an impressive grasp of the campaign issues (without any hype of the media’s self-appointed pundits) when she appears periodically on Bill Moyer’s Journal on Channel 13 on Sunday evenings.

WHAT HAPPENED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14TH VALENTINE’S DAY POETRY READING?
For one brief moment on Valentine’s Day 2008, the gritty prose of Touro College was transformed into a richly textured poetic atmosphere by five Touro professors in the Languages and Literature department. All five demonstrated a variety of styles and subject matter, each describing very different personal realities.

“Today’s program is historic,” exclaimed Dean Timothy Taylor in his introductory welcome to a packed classroom at the Midtown campus. Professor Brenda Coultas introduced the five poets who read briefly from their works to the enthusiastic applause of the audience.

Professor Charles Borkhuis, playwright and screenwriter, commented that “Poets feels the need to write..Through the use of imagery, they open a deep channel to their childhoods to help clarify their need to write poetry.” His selections reflected a cinematic use of language with unexpected conflicting images. One of Borkhuis’s most memorable lines was, “The trouble is – I am the missing premise from my own argument.”

In honor of Valentine’s Day, the love poems of Professor Jan Garden Castro caught the audience’s attention. She has published widely, including a book on the artist Georgia O’Keefe. The words were personal and affecting, One of her poems, “Bones,’ included the line “Love is easier to make than popcorn.”

Drawing from her background in the heartland of Illinois, Professor Brenda Coultas, also with extensive publication credits, created a series of poetic narratives, illustrating Lincoln country through the description of one man’s reflections. One memorable line was, “I heard the word and the word was autocracy.”

Poet/Professor Joseph Sabado drew from his farming childhood in California as he recreated images of his father working on the family tractor. “Nobody can make us ashamed, nobody,” exclaimed his father. Another line was his father’s determined, “I’ll make straight this crooked spine of a life.”

The closing portion of the Poetry Festival was led by Professor Carlisle Yearwood, who has a long list of publishing and performing credits. With his passionate and theatrical baritone, Yearwood painted several distinctive and trenchant portraits of “Harlem is a woman.” He then transformed a bleak prose piece of James Baldwin into a vivid poetic vision. In a trenchant comment on American culture, he closed with “Hey, you! What’s up with that cellphone?”

A first of its kind for Touro, this Faculty Poetry Festival promises to be an annual event.

Four members of the Club were in the audience: Drani Gabu, Richard Green, David Nussbaum and Hal Wicke. All thought the event was excellent.
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Remember our meetings are now on Wednesdays @ 1 pm.

See you next time. Bring a friend!

Hal Wicke