Female Poets Presentation

Tonight was my big presentation on female poets of the 19th century. I feel fairly good about it. I was a little nervous, and I stammered a bit, but mostly, the presentation went well. I think everyone was impressed by it. Carolyn Loeb, who is this awesome art historian, showed up and took notes and asked questions and made me feel like I'm really an emerging scholar. I felt very adult and proud of myself.
Someone asked me what I liked best about this project, and I feel, without a doubt, that I'm happy I discovered Frances E.W. Harper. The more time I spend with her, the more I learn. I would be more than happy to keep writing about her work, because she's an important, mostly forgotten voice in American literature. She's a wonderful, gifted writer and deserves to be up there with Whitman, Twain, Poe, Austen, Dickens, and Dickinson.

More Upcoming Events

As promised, I have another set of upcoming events that are happening in and around MSU.

April 14 The Poem as Vehicle 3 pm Snyder Hall Common Area
Christine Rhein, who is reading next week, will be giving a talk about the poem as a vehicle. Ms. Rhein will be talking about the elements that work together to make an effective poem and show the audience the kind of trial and error that goes on it creating poems, making it easier for the audience to engineer poems.

April 14 Nineteenth-Century Women Crusaders and Poets 7 pm C204 Snyder Hall
This is the presentation that I keep mentioning here on the blog. I'm going to be talking about some activist women poets who wrote about politics. I'll be focusing on Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Ann Plato, Eliza Lee Cabot Follen, Sarah Louisa Forten and Francis E.W. Harper. I'll be discussing their poetry and the racism and sexism that they both fight and accidentally defend.

April 22 Red Cedar Review Issue Release Party 7:30 pm Scene Metrospace
The Red Cedar Review, the nationally-known literary magazine here at MSU, will be celebrating the release of it's next issue. Everyone is welcome to come by to hear some of the author's of the new issue read.

April 29 Poetry Chalking in front of Phillips
The Center for Poetry often has poetry chalkings in the Spring. Basically, you can just bring yourself and the Center will give you a poem and chalk to decorate the sidewalk with. (You're allowed to bring your own poems, if you'd like, but you're not required.) I've always had a great time at these kinds of events, especially if it's a beautiful day.

Like before, all these events are free and open to the public, so make sure you stop by for some of them.

Presentation Preparation

Tonight, I went to a presentation about giving good presentations. I'm giving an academic presentation on my undergraduate thesis next week, and I was hoping for some good tips. I've given presentations before, but never this long.
Most of the stuff the presentation talked about was stuff I've already heard and strive to do. One of the things the presenter mentioned was that people are repelled by blue, so don't use it in your presentation. I had never heard of that. (My last presentation in my Feminism class was on Jean Rhys, and my partner and I had picked a blue layout in honor of her most famous novel Wide Sargasso Sea. Oops.) I also learned that the Writing Center has a program where you go and give your presentation to a reviewer who will give you tips. I probably won't have time to use that resource, but it's a good thing to know.
I'm hoping to get the presentation done in a few days so I can email it to my thesis adviser, Anita Skeen. Hopefully, she'll have some good ideas to make sure it's an effective presentation.