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The play Passion and Purpose, where
we invite our guests to showcase their joy

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through their everyday passions. I'm Terry
Fierro, your co host, and we

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have mar Lenny Cruz. Yeah,
Marny. Well, welcome, ladies and

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gentlemen. I think we have a
very interesting guest today. He is all

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about creative thinking, creative aging,
and who doesn't want that? Oh,

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and poetry as well well. Doctor
Christopher Parker is a teaching artist focusing on

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creativity. He has been published in
poetry journals and scholarly periodicals. He currently

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teaches creative thinking at Montclair State University, and it is written that his workshops

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stimulate the mind, create joy,
and help one to engage in social fun.

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Oh I need that for you,
So without further ado, let us

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well, welcome doctor Christopher Parker.
Welcome, doctor lightful to be here.

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Yeah, we're very eager to hear
about your experiences. So tell us first,

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I guess about your journey. How
you got onto this path of creative

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thinking, creative fun, poetry.
Well, I think I started as a

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child. I like language, but
I like narratives and I like stories.

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Yeah, so as a kid,
I made the Kodak Movie Awards films when

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we had the Kodak Company, and
I won like a first place. Oh

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wow, right for a little narrative
on one of my brothers who's still an

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actor of sorts. He works for
the government. How old were you then?

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Oh? I probably was in eighth
grade, so what would that be?

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Twelve or thirteen? And then I
moved on to high school and made

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other films that won the first place
in the New Jersey Public Television Young People's

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Film Festival. My brother, little
brother is now a Hollywood director. I

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moved on to other things, but
people say fired him anyway. But I

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was always interested in narrative and story. In high school, I picked up

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poetry, so I said, I
want to write this. And then it's

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time to graduate, and I wanted
to go to university, so I said

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I want to do the Poetry Journal, and I did that. Then I

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said I want a good MFA program, so I went to the Columbia MFA

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program, which takes work to get
into. Had great teachers or great inspiration

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inspiring people. They were great teachers. So Derek Walcott, who was a

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Nobel Prize winner, wasn't at that
time. Joseph Brodsky, one of the

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great Russian immigrant poets, and then
then somebody else entirely different, like Phil

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Lavigne. So these were inspiring to
me. All the other poets I worked

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with are inspiring, and some of
my colleagues are still inspiring to me as

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well. I came out, I
said, well, I have to work,

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so I want to be a poet
in the schools is what we called

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it back in nineteen seventy nine.
We're eighty now it's called teaching artists.

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Okay, but I got into that
program and I've been doing that for forty

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three years, wow and off.
Even when I'm full time in the business

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world, I was doing I was
still a teaching artist. The Dodge Foundation

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has a big high school version of
it, and they liked that I was

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a working person and an artist to
show that does work. And I was

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inspiring to the teachers, especially because
we were really teaching teachers how to teach

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the art poetry and it goes on. So I've been doing that ever since.

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And of course creative thinking was offered
to me because at Montclair State,

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because I showed up at meetings and
I had a history of working with other

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artists and myself. So that's very
interesting. What kind of poetry do you

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focus on or do you like in
my personal writing? Yes, and person

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well, I like the great poets
from like Audent more contemporary. I like

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reading Joseph Brodsky to see what he
did in English. Although some of his

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English writing we don't recommend all the
time, No we don't. He did

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great stuff in translation translated by others. It was beautiful and amazing. Uh

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So that's what I look at those
translations. And Derek Walcott was a poet

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and a playwright. By the way, I'm writing place too nice because it's

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multi passionate. Love that, Yeah, and I read I read Derek well.

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And I also read what's coming up
in the New Yorker and in the

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poetry journals like Poetry Magazine. And
what kind of poetry do you write well,

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I think I would write narratives they
have hopefully they have a story.

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I always like that stories. And
I like to use a lot of metaphor,

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and that's what I teach and creative
thinking, by the way, metaphor

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as one of the thinking processes for
creative thinking, and I like to play

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with language. Earlier on, we
were talking about ai Ai writing for us.

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I don't use that yet, but
who knows, we may. But

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I use others. I use a
the things I use tools. I use

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the Dutch Boy paint fan deck,
which has the great names of metaphors for

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colors. By the way, you're
the best one because the market place.

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You're right, I always wonder who
has that job, you know, they

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they name lipsticks and makeup colors and
paint chips, and that's that's fascinating.

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Yeah, so can you share something
with us? I mean, how long

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are your is your poetry? You
have long poetryes or short pieces? I

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have some short pieces. I'm not
thinking of any, but I have one

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to read if Yeah. So this
is what I'm doing recently, and it's

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a new m milieu from me.
Okay, I'm moving on to religious okay

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poetry because there's a whole movement in
that I wasn't before. I always mentioned

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spirituality and okay, So this one
is inspired by a painting from a friend

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of mine, Denver, Colorado's name
is Ron Zero. He does I said,

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Ron, Yeah, I'm going to
write some ekphrastic poetry that means painting

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based on I mean poetry based on
pictures or images or artwork. You've heard

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even in cartoons owed to a Grecian
urn. Yes, that might have been

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one of the early frastic ones.
Okay, so here's this one. It's

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called August fifteenth, six am.
It's August fifteenth because that is the assumption

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of the Virgin Mary in the Christian
faith the Catholic faith. I must redeem

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my transfer pass. I take streetcar
twelve to Lafayette Cemetery in New Orleans.

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My incense a cigarette on the driver's
lips. The iron wheels and electric roof

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pole a raspy quintet. Thus the
travel time slips from long to present.

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My bulletin went to press yesterday,
so I stay on track. The street

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car struck a junction to select a
direction. Aft One woman suckles her infant

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draped in blue. It's my station. I pushed the chime at Lafayette.

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Magnolia's lose their bloom by June.
A rattle wattlewood shed, formerly painted gold,

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is now gray? Is it abylone? Peuture fawn or thundercloud? A

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blue tarp furls freyed a kinetic monument
to the eastern wind. The landscaper's contract

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taped under the arc is a hollowing
sign. Here I pray for Mary's body.

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It's waning twilight quote sailing to dark
her last long sleep, three bells

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her night, tryst that lasts on
the course in divine light, to be

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amidst her offspring, raining right her
perception, A fluid extension of Gabriel's early

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declaration. Amen. Now our corridor
on the planet is vacant, the magnet

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latent. No need for the Cajun
restaurateur. So I bite my own English

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muffin monstrous size. Thomas's solace at
the repose of Mary is gifted to me.

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One white rose pedal from yesterday's service
close is stuck between the slats.

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The blue remains. Life changes like
clipped hair, Its fibers fall further from

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who reins no transfer trip fare there. Wow, Wow, that's Steve.

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I can understand the metaphors that you
use, and I love the combining the

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past with the present. And it
slows you down as a reader, as

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a as a listener, because you
need to you find the association of the

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words. It's not like reading a
story where you're just going along and it's

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just this takes a lot more work
on the on the viewer or on the

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person that's reading it. And I'm
sure that's the intent. Well, I

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appreciate that you say it takes a
lot more work. That's a that's a

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benefit and a curse. Okay,
you know, I'm reading the new journals

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and I like what's being read,
even some of the Catholic journals, and

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it's not quite what I do.
I want to be in the mood and

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be in the tone that they use, but do I I don't really want

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to. Okay, I'm I'm of
sure enough age where I can choose my

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I think I want to choose my
own form, my own style, my

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own way of writing. This might
take a lot more work to publish,

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it might not. You know,
this artist throughout the centuries who've done great

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new work but didn't get recognized until
later. And it's it's interesting. I'm

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almost trying to picture the art with
the words. You know, there's a

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lot of contrast there. Like one
that that's stuck with me was the part

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with the cigarette and then you you
kind of contrast that with like the religious

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Like there's contrasts right that you have
to kind of think about it and compare.

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Yeah, that It's just deep.
It makes you think, I love

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it. Would you have been capable
of writing this in your early twenties or

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is this something that you feel as
you've aged you've become better at it.

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That's a good question. Yeah.
As I've aged, I've I've become more

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confident even when nobody else likes it
or has to work on it. Yes,

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I'm going through with it anyway.
Okay. No, these are tools

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I've learned over fifty years. Okay. So I have the methodology to write

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this and the wisdom and the experience
and the wisdom I hope so absolutely.

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As reading it to you, I
go, okay, I gotta change that.

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I got a change, never satisfied. Right, that's so interesting.

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So you talk a lot in your
programs about creative aging and we're all aging,

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So what what do you mean by
that? What is your intent with

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that? Well, as we discussed, aging is really living longer. Okay,

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more opportunities right. I Oh,
I'm sorry, I said I like

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how you put that. There's some
research from the National Dawnmad for the Arts

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and then that National Health Foundation that
said that the arts are actually good for

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us on healing and in our aging
people. You know, as years go

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by, you get loneliness, you
get isolation, you don't use your minds.

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My adult older students say this is
this is when I think, I'm

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so glad you gave us some work
I have to think about. Yeah,

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they appreciate the direction. Yeah.
I think also creativity changes as we age,

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because as you just expressed, we
become more risk takers. We have

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to because what have we got to
lose? And so I can see that,

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Yes, we need to think more, we need to apply new skills

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and take more risks in that area. Now, my question would be,

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is poetry similar to painting, for
example, that is sometimes left in the

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interpretation of the person that's looking at
it or listening. Well, I think

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I like the way you worded it. Yes, it's left in the interpretation.

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Sure. Painting it also tells narratives, sometimes also has metaphor sometimes also

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my students we often bring them to
paintings and say, I want the smell,

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I want the feeling. I want
how you what does that texture feel

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like in touch? I want the
sound to come out of this. So

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you can do that with language.
Language does make sound, doesn't It's I'm

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giving you noise. Really that people
understand. I love it. You're using

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the five senses, yes, oh
yes, and my head, my brain

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is hurting, just saying you,
well, what is the texture of that

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pain? What is it smelling?
Well, what exactly do you mean by

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that? And I think I do
understand it, but I don't know how

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to express that, right, how
do you express it? Well, that's

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a good that's a good point.
So I give tools to start to my

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students, whether they're ninety or they're
eighteen, or they're twenty five. And

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so those tools are things like,
okay, let's look at the colors,

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and I do bring out the Dutch
Boy paint fandex because they have the best

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metaphors for colors. You can take
this language, you could take that feelings.

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I use the emotion wheel. Oh
yes, it's a circle that shows

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different categories of emotions. Yeah,
I feel really bad. Okay, Well

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that's not what we do in poetry. Fine, never say fine, okay,

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go into the details of your emotions. You know, get the specific

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vocabulary. You probably knew it once
when you learned it, but you never

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use them, even as ninety year
olds. So we get the name for

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our emotion I love it. It's
like going to a buffet and always eating

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the same thing and you see the
other foods there, but you're not going

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to experience them. That's an excellent
metaphor for that way. Yeah, and

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with sound, I'll use toys and
tools to make noise. I'm saying now,

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you can't say this is a pipe
that stretches. That's not what this

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is. We need a metaphor for
the sound, and we need the physics

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of this sound like, yeah,
it sounds like coins dropping from a can.

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Okay, well what kind of can? Is it? A metal can?

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Is a plastic and what's falling onto? If it palls onto carpeting,

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it's a different sound that it calls
onto porcelain. Yeah, what is And

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how's the moisture in the air that
changes the sound too? Wow? So

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we do that? Yeah, you're
really making your your students think. And

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that's what we need because we're you
know, if you look at blues taxonomy,

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we are not synthesizing. We're not
problem solving, we're not decision making,

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and this type of exercise will lead
to the it's not just basic.

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Well yeah, that's that felt hard
and that sounded good and you know,

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we over use some simple words.
So I just love that. Now.

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I wanted to ask you a question
because there is something called fluid intelligence and

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crystallized, and I just finished reading
a book where we have this fluid intellectualism

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when we're younger. It's being able
to recall facts and memorize, and then

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it peaks about age twenty, whereas
crystallized, as we're getting older, we

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then pick and choose, We trim
off what's not really important. And so

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we need the young and the old
because we need the fluid and the crystallized

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to come together. So what is
your understanding of that or how do you

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appreciate that? Well? I appreciate
the description. I think it's all metaphoric.

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It is exactly science, but it's
a good description of how we perceive

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something. Yeah, it fluid.
I'm not sure that's actually accurate. I

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say a lot of young people too, and I have college students come in

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and they are not fluid always some
people of this class is not for me

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and not but they leave right because
this is they're so structured. They want

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something that makes sense, that's definable
and easy, and they're taught by their

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paradigms. Don't be creative, just
do this. That's not what makes money,

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exactly right. It doesn't make money, but it does create people make

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money, absolutely okay. Because we
always have this idea of the starving artist,

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you know. Yeah, that's our
our mental picture. So you're you're

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absolutely right. I think the more
we can distinguish ourselves and set ourselves apart,

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the better it is for our own
profession and for society. Oh,

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I think so definitely. That's one
of my biggest obstacles to the creative thinking

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class is that starving artists paradigm.
Also, some students are A plus students,

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and they didn't get a plus by
doing things outside the box. They're

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very good in the box. Now
the box is good. You should never

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leave the box. Probably absolutely play
it two and cut a hole in itself.

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You know. As a fellow educator, I remember my students coming up

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to me every few minutes if I
gave them something creative to do, Miss

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Ferrill, Is this right? Miss
Ferrell? Am I doing this right?

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Go sit down, because you determine
what's right and what's wrong. Usual they

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were afraid to use their creativity.
They felt that I was to be pleased.

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I was the one giving the grade, and so let me just give

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her what she wants rather than how
I can express myself best. That's exactly

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right. They want to have the
exact rule how you do this exactly?

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Yes? Does that happen in poetry
as well, where people think that is

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this right or wrong? Is you
know? I'm assuming that poetry has that

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flexibility where you can just make up
this whole new kind of genre if you

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will. Well, there is that, you can make up a whole new

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genre. But you can also use
the old ancient forms. And people do

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the sonnet, the villainel, the
sistina, these old poetry forms. Okay,

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you know, I tell us about
it. Okay, Well, like

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two roads diverge into yellow Wood or
Shakespeare's sonnets. It's a form, okay.

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And the good thing about it is
that actually helps you write. It

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can follow a form. Okay,
I gotta do this or right, I

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have these words to fit into this. I could see that like a high

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qu because it gives you structure,
and as a beginner, we would need

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structure exactly. As a matter of
fact, yesterday with some with some ninety

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year old students, we wrote high
kup. Most of them had never heard

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of high ku or they heard of
it, They had no idea what it

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was. Everybody loved doing hi kup
and they counted syllables with their fingers.

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I showed them that's the easiest way
to go, and so, yeah,

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so form helps you. A matter
of fact, that's where they they were

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least fearful about the form, although
they did say this takes a lot of

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work. I said, this is
not easy. I said, well,

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do you want easy classes here?
I don't think they really. Do you

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want to be stimulated? Yes?
I When I was about eight or nine

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months pregnant, I wrote a very
long poem for my daughter. I would

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love to send that to you so
you can read it. And it took

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me quite some time. It took
me about five hours to write. And

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how I started, I've never taken
poetry classes, I've never written poetry before.

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This was just out of my head. And I started by getting some

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keywords that I wanted her to have
for her lifetime. I started with those

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keywords, and then from those key
words, I chose words that rhymed with

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those keywords, and then I separated
them by little tiny paragraphs, and that

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you know. That's how I started
the poem. So I've never taken a

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poetry class. What does a poetry
class consist of? And what does it

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teach? What to respond to your
poem? Firth, You did invent a

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form. You had a complete structure
and a form. You want these words,

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you want a rhyme for these words, and you want paragraphs. It's

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sort of like saying a stanza or
a length. So what you asked about

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a poetry workshop or a poetry class, Yeah, potry, What does this

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consist of? And what do people
you know, learn? Well, I

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do them sometimes and back for creative
thinking. We do a lot of poetry,

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but we don't call it that.
When I was at Columbia University,

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it's basically these big deal poets,
you know, at a table, like

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we're sitting at here, and we
go and they talk or she talks,

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and we go over mostly what we
wrote, and we get feedback from people.

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And I remember from Joseph Brotsky he
said, okay, remember a poem

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and a great poetry by Audin and
write it down like a hundred times.

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Now. We learned that in like
second grade, right a lot of times.

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Yeah, that's graduate school at Columbia
University from Nobel Prods winning poets.

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This is what they teach. So
that's what it's about. It's about getting

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feedback from your community. And that's
also creative aging. That's valuable to my

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students at in Clifton. Now,
you know, at one time, when

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I first started teaching many years ago, I actually had students memorize poetry.

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Yes, and you know, it's
just a good mind exercise, and then

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I would have them recited for their
parents. I retired a few years ago.

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We stopped that entirely. I mean
because the administration said, well,

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there's really no benefit to that,
which I disagree with. Yes, so

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it went by the wayside like most
arts usually do. But anyway, how

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can we be creative with math and
science? How can we incorporate that into

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creativity. That's a good one,
because I'm not a step back some research

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on creativity with math and science,
and I like working with that. First

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of all, you can come up
with mathematics. Now, what is this

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the Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences? I
actually okay, And it shows the amount

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of the number format of trees in
a formation of trees in an orchard.

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You know, okay, And so
if I want to write about orchards,

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I'll write my poetry with the form
that cast covers five seven, six from

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that and I'll go, do I
want five words five syllables? So I'll

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follow the math for that. That's
a great way to teach you. That's

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really cool. At Montclair State for
a while there, I was the poetry

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advisor to physics and math. Oh
my goodness, student project to come over

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and how can I write poetry about
the science of juggling, which there is

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math too. Yeah, yeah,
so that's how I feel about math.

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I think it's important to put into
poet, all right, And so what

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do you feel like? How do
you feel about limericks or poetry from Shell

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Silverstein, which I you know,
as a fourth and fifth grade teacher absolutely

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loved to expose my students too.
And it's so playful and it's so much

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fun when you can rhyme words as
was also a songwriter, Shel Silvers.

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And I love Johnny Cash as a
boy named Sue, which has a lot

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of communication for today in various various
ways. And so that's poetry too.

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I love Sell Silverstein. However,
I did one point have a middle school

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class in Middlesex County that I was
teaching, and the mother wanted her son

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to be able to write shelves silver
stain or what's her name? Doctor Seuss?

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Oh yeah, I said, Okay, I appreciate that. That's not

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what we're doing. Okay, that's
not the curriculum I us. Okay,

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right, So so some people really
want that. I don't think anything's wrong

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with that at all. Yeah,
And it's a fun way to learn when

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you can rhyme words. Yes,
it is, yes, especially for younger

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How about humor? Do you use
humor in your poetry? Use or or

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as humor even used? Is that
a thing? Oh? I think it's

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a good question. I think I
use humor. I don't even know am

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using humor. Especially in classes people
laugh several times in classic Oh what was

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that about? Okay, I obviously
said something funny. Now just being metaphoric,

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just talking about how you saw something, how you feel about something,

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giving a tiny story about what happened
this morning on the way in. All

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of those things are humor, And
yes, I think humor is important.

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And poetry I put the romatic sometimes
or serious to me, which you might

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have to think as you mentioned to
interpret, but I think humor is important

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to add to that too. You
can do do humor with language with types

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of rhymes, and you mentioned rhyme
before. You can also do subtle rhymes.

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You can rhyme half the word.
You can rhyme the end and the

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beginning of these words and put another
word in to the next line. That

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way, people don't quite know that
it's yes, I'm right, it's not

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cat and that. But but it
hooks them and it's quite nuanced. But

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they go, it's nuanced. That's
a good word for it, And they

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go, that's good. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, right. I do

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like it. It resonates. I
think it's analogous to when you're selling your

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house. Wow, you clean the
switch plate. You can change the switch

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plates, okay, because this fingerprints
all over them, and the numbers on

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your house they're rust first impressions.
Okay, very absolutely. Do poets get

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writer's block, Well, that's a
good question. Yes you can, But

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you can also just keep working writing
buck doesn't matter. I've got to work.

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He made his slim living on poetry, so he wrote all the time.

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He smoked ciggybuts he drank drinks.
He ate food, and he wrote

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poetry, so you can just make
yourself do it. So amazing. So

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now how would you approach the person
because I have absolutely no creativity. I

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don't know how to write poetry.
I don't have a creative thought in my

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head. Or do you do you
think everybody is capable of writing a poem?

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Yes? I think everybody is capable
of writing a poem because I've done

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it with students who who say exactly
this, and they in fact do so.

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Yes, I think everybody is capable
of creative thinking. And there are,

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as we mentioned, social paradigms that
blocked this, beliefs that you're not

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going to make any money at it, this is a waste of your time.

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So what you have an idea?
We've heard these things from people who

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love us. Sometimes they yeah the
best for us. But we even write

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at Montclaire State Theater reviews for things
we've never seen. These students have never

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been to live theater. Okay,
now they have to write a New York

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Times style review filled with the language
and the metaphor of that, and what

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they can produce is amazing. But
I help them do it with some toys

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and tools. So we listen to
the elements of music or the elements of

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dance and write the metaphors for what
you saw. And the writing can be

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amazing. Oh you use music too, absolutely for sure. That's really cool.

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So what how can we age creatively
besides poetry? What else can you

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teach us to age creatively? Good? Well, you probably should make a

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commitment to yourself to do something creative
every day, and it can be something

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new and creative. You can invent
something, put it on your post it

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note and put on your refrigerator.
Make a commitment to doing something. I

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make a commitment. You can write
in your journal, you can take workshops.

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There's probably a lot of things online
you can do too. So it's

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all about coming out of your comfort
zone, yes, and saying I don't

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think I can do this for I'm
going to try anyway, trying things.

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Okay. Wow, So this has
just been absolutely fascinating And I want to

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go home and write a poem.
I would love to get your idea on

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the poem I wrote for my daughter. Yeah, I would love that.

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So, Doctor Parker, if our
audience wants to reach out and find out

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more about your work, how could
they do that? Well, they can

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send me an email. Okay,
okay, so give us those Christopher Parker

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eight one zero at Gmail. Also, I have a couple of websites.

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Here's go ahead, doctor Dr Christopher
W. Parker. My wife helped me

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name that one dot com. Okay, Dr christ Christopher W. Parker.

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Uh Living Poetically? Oh? I
like that poetic? And do you feature

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some of your own poems on there
that people could read, or poems of

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your students. That's a good question. I feature access to some of that

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things I will teach or methodologies I've
used, and you can use them right

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there if you want. Alrighty,
Well, we look forward to looking at

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your work and further investigating the websites
and the programs. I would love to

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know more about the program so you
have that information and when the dates on

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your website, I'll put that on. Yeah, why not? I think

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we would like that our audience as
well, because we'd like to know what

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you're doing in the future. So
you'll be going back to MSU in September

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and what we'd be teaching. I'm
also at Felician University teaching philosophy, and

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I'm at Caldwell teaching writing classes.
Look I gotta teach you how to be

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ambitious. One campus. Nothing is
further than seven miles. Oh that's not

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that okay, Well, thank you
so much, doctor Parker. And it's

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been a fun, Yeah it really
was. We need to invite you again,

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yes, and we invite our audience
to stay tuned next week. But

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in the meantime, go home and
write a home that thanks ladies, and

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Jens will see you next time.
Bye bye now