To play passion and Purpose, where we invite our guests to showcase their joy
through their everyday passions. I'm Terry Fierro, your co host, and we
have mar Lannie Cruz. Yeah. Well, welcome, ladies and gentlemen.
I think we have a very interesting guest today. Yes, he is all
about creative thinking, creative aging, and who doesn't want that? Oh and
poetry as well well. Doctor Christopher Parker is a teaching artist focusing on creativity.
He has been published in poetry journals and scholarly periodicals. He currently teaches
creative thinking at Montclair State University, and it is written at his workshops stimulate
the mind, create joy, and help one to engage in social fun.
Oh I need that for you. Without further ado, let us welcome doctor
Christopher Parker. Welcome, doctor Lightful. Yeah, we're very eager to hear
about your experiences. So tell us first, I guess about your journey.
How you got onto this path of creative thinking, creative fun, poetry.
Well, I think I started as a child. I like language, but
I like narratives and I like stories. Yeah, so as a kid,
I made the Kodak Movie Awards films. When we had the Kodak Company,
and I won like a first place. Oh wow, right for a little
narrative on one of my brothers who's still an actor of sorts. He works
for the government. How old were you then, Oh? I probably was
in eighth grade, so what would that be, twelve or thirteen? And
then I moved on to high school and made other films that won the first
place in the New Jersey Public Television Young People's Film Festival. My brother little
brother is now a Hollywood director, moved onto other things, but people say
I inspired him anyway. But I was always interested in narrative and story.
In high school, I picked up poetry, so I said, I want
to write this. And then it's time to graduate, and I wanted to
go to university, so I said I wanted to do the Poetry Journal,
and I did that. Then I said, I want a good m f
A program, So I went to the Columbia MFA program, which takes work
to get into. Had great teachers or great inspiration inspiring people. They were
great teachers. So Derek Walcott, who was a Nobel Prize winner, wasn't
at that time. Joseph Brodsky, one of the great Russian immigrant poets,
and then and then somebody else entirely different, like Phil Levine. So these
were inspiring to me. All the other poets I worked with are inspiring,
and some of my colleagues are still inspiring to me as well. I came
out, I said, well, I have to work, so I want
to be a poet in the schools is what we called it back in nineteen
seventy nine or eighty. Now it's called teaching artist. Okay, okay,
but um, I got into that program. Um. And I've been doing
that for forty three years wow and off. Even when I'm full time in
the business world, I was doing I was still a teaching artist. The
Dodge Foundation has a big high school version of it, and they liked that
I was a working person and an artist to show that does work. And
I was inspiring to the teachers, especially because we were really teaching teachers how
to teach the art poetry and it goes on. So I've been doing that
ever since. And of course creative thinking. It was offered to me because
at Montclair State, because I showed up at meetings and I I had a
history of working with other artists and myself so that's very interesting. What kind
of poetry do you focus on or do you like in my personal writing?
Yes, and person well, I like the great poets from the like Awt
more contemporary. I like reading Joseph Brodsky to see what he did in English.
Although some of his English writing we don't recommend all the time, No
we don't. He did great stuff in translation translated by others. It was
beautiful and amazing. So that's what I look at those translations. And Derek
Walcott was a poet and a playwright. By the way, I'm writing places
too nice. It's multi passionate. Love that, Yeah, And I read
Derek well. And I also read What's coming Up in the New Yorker and
in the poetry journals like Poetry Magazine. And what kind of poetry do you
write well, I think I would write narratives they have hopefully they have a
story. I always like that stories. And I like to use a lot
of metaphor, and that's what I teach and creative thinking, by the way,
metaphor as one of the thinking processes for creative thinking. Okay, and
I like to play with language. Earlier on, we were talking about Ai
Ai writing for us. I don't use that yet, but who knows,
we may. But I use other I use other things. I use tools.
I use the Dutch Boy paint fan deck, which has the great names
of metaphors for colors. By the way, you're the best one the marketplace.
You're right. I always wonder who has that job, you know.
They they name lipsticks and makeup colors and paint chips, and that's that's fascinating.
Yeah, so can you share something with us? I mean, how
long are your is your poetry? You have long poetryes or short pieces?
I have some short pieces. I'm not thinking of any, but I have
one to read. Yeah. Yeah, So this is what I'm doing recently,
and it's a new m milieu from me. Okay, I'm moving on
to religious okay, poetry because there's a whole movement in that I wasn't before.
I always mentioned spirituality and okay, So this one is inspired by a
painting from a friend of mine Denver, Colorado's name is ron Zito. He
does paintings. I said, Ron, Yeah, I'm going to write some
ekphrastic poetry. What does that mean? That means painting based on I mean
poetry based on pictures or images or artwork you've heard even in cartoons owed to
a Grecian urn. Yes, that might have been one of the early chrastic
ones. Okay, so here's this one. It's called August fifteenth, six
am. It's August fifteenth because that is the assumption of the Virgin Mary in
the Christian faith. Okay, the Catholic faith. Right, I must redeem
my transfer pass. I take streetcar twelve to Lafayette Cemetery in New Orleans.
My incense a cigarette on the driver's lips, the iron wheels and electric roof
pole a raspy quintet. Thus the travel times slips from long to present.
My bulletin went to press yesterday, so I stay on track. The street
car struck a junction to select a direction. Aft One woman suckles her infant
draped in blue. It's my station. I pushed the chime at Lafayette.
Magnolias lose their bloom by June. A rattle wattlewood shed, formerly painted gold,
is now gray? Is it abalone? Future fawn or thundercloud? A
blue tarp furls freyed a kinetic monument to the eastern wind. The Landscaper's contract
taped under the arc is a hollowing sign. Here I pray for Mary's body.
It's waning twilight quote sailing to dark her last long sleep. Three bells
her night, a tryst that lasts on the course in divine light, to
be amists her offspring, raining right her perception, A fluid extension of Gabriel's
early declaration. Amen. Now our corridor on the planet is vacant, the
magnet latent. No need for the Cajun restaurateur. So I bite my own
English muffin monstrous size. Thomas's solace at the repose of Mary is gifted to
me. One white rose pedal from yesterday's service close is stuck between the slats.
The blue remains. Life changes like clipped hair, Its fibers fall further
from who rains no transfer trip fare there? Wow, Wow, indeed you
know that's indeed. I can understand the metaphors that you used, and I
love the combining the past with the present. And it slows you down as
a reader, as a as a listener, because you need to you find
the association of the words. It's not like reading a story where you're just
going along and it's just this takes a lot more work on the on the
viewer or on the person that's reading it. And I'm sure that's the intent.
Well, I appreciate that you say it takes a lot more work.
That's a that's a benefit and a curse. Okay. You know, I'm
reading the new journals and I like what's being read, even some of the
Catholic journals, and it's not quite what I do. I want to be
in the mood and be in the tone that they use, but do I
I don't really want to. Okay, I'm I'm of mature enough age where
I can choose my I think I want to choose my own form, my
own style, my own way of writing. This might take a lot more
work to publish, it might not. You know this artists throughout the centuries
who've done great new work but didn't get recognized until later. And it's it's
interesting. I'm almost trying to picture the art with the words. Yea.
You know, there's a lot of contrast there, Like one that that stuck
with me was the part with the cigarette, and then you you kind of
contrast that with like the religions, like there's contrasts, right, that you
have to kind of think about and compare. Yeah, that it's just deep.
It makes you think, I love it. Would you have been capable
of writing this in your early twenties or is this something that you feel as
you've aged you've become better at it. That's a good question. Yeah.
As I've aged, I've I've become more confident even when nobody else likes it
or has to work on it. Yes, I'm going through with it anyway.
Okay, Um, No, these are tools I've learned over fifty years.
Okay, So I have the methodology to write this and the wisdom and
the experience and the wisdom I hope so absolutely. As reading it to you,
I go, okay, I gotta change that. I gotta change.
Never satisfied. Right, that's so interesting. So you talk a lot in
your programs about creative aging and we're all aging, So what what do you
mean by that? What is your intent with that? Well, as we
discussed, aging is really living longer. Okay, more opportunities right. I
Oh, I'm sorry, I said. I like how you put that.
There's some research from the National Downmo of the Arts, and then that a
National Health foundation that said that the arts are actually good for us on healing
and in our aging people. You know, as years go by, you
get loneliness, you get isolation, you don't use your minds. Yea.
My adult older students um say this is this is when I think, I'm
so glad you gave us work I have to think about. Yeah, they
appreciate the direction. Yeah. I think also creativity change changes as we age,
because, as you just expressed, we become more risk takers. We
have to because what have we got to lose? And so I can see
that, yes, we need to think more, we need to apply new
skills and take more risks in that area. Now my question would be,
is poetry similar to painting, for example, that is sometimes left in the
interpretation of the person that's looking at it or listening. Well, I think
I like the way you worded it. Yes, it's left in the interpretation.
Sure, painting it also tells narratives sometimes, yeah, also has metaphor
sometimes. Also my students, we often bring them to paintings and say,
I want the smell, I want the feeling. I want how you what
does that texture feel like in touch? I want the sound to come out
of this, So you can do that with language. Language does make sound,
doesn't it. I'm giving you noise really that people understand. I love
it. You're using five senses, yes, oh yes, and my head,
my brain is hurting, just saying you, well, what is the
texture of that pain? What is it smell like? Well? What exactly
do you mean by that? And I think I do understand it, but
I don't know how to express that, right, how do you express it?
Well, that's a good that's a good point. So I give tools
to start to my students, whether they're ninety or they're eighteen, or they're
twenty five. And so those tools are things like, okay, let's look
at the colors, and I do bring out the Dutch Boy paint Fan DEXX
because they have the best metaphors for colors. You can take the language,
you could take that feelings. I use the emotion wheel. Oh yes,
it's a circle that shows different categories of emotions. Yeah, I feel really
bad. Okay, Well that's not what we do in poetry. Fine,
never say fine, okay, go into the details of your emotions. You
know, get the specific vocabulary. You probably knew it once when you learn
it. But you never use them even as ninety year olds. So we
get the name for our emotion. I love it. It's like going to
a buffet and always eating the same thing and you see the other foods there,
but you're not going to experience them. That's an excellent metaphor for that
way. Yeah, and with sound, I'll use toys and tools to make
noise. I'm saying now, you can't say this is a pipe that stretches.
That's not what this is. We need a metaphor for the sound,
and we need the physics of this sound like, yeah, it sounds like
coins dropping from a can. Okay, well what kind of can is it?
A metal? Can't? Is a plastic? And what's falling onto?
If it pulls onto carpeting, it's a different sound that it calls onto porcelain.
Yeah, what is? And how's the moisture in the air that changes
the sound too? Wow? So we do that? Yeah, you're really
making your your students think. And that's what we need because we're you know,
if you look at blues taxonomy, we are not synthesizing. We're not
problem solving, we're not decision making, and this type of of exercise will
lead to that it's not just basic. Well yeah, that's that felt hard
and that sounded good, and you know, we overuse some simple words.
So I just love that. Now I wanted to ask you a question because
there is something called fluid intelligence and crystallized. Now. I just finished reading
a book where we have this fluid intellectualism when we're younger. It's being able
to recall facts and memorize, and then it piques about age twenty or as
crystallized. As we're getting older. We then pick and choose, We trim
off what's not really important, and so we need the young and the old
because we need the fluid and the crystallized to come together. So what is
your understanding of that or how do you appreciate that? Well, I appreciate
the description. I think it's all metaphoric. It is exactly science, but
it's a good description of how we perceive. So, yeah, fluid,
I'm not sure that's actually accurate. I see a lot of young people too,
and I have college students come in and they are not fluid always some
people of this class is not for me and not but they leave right because
this is they're so structured. They want something that makes sense, that's definable
and easy, and they're taught by their paradigms. Don't be creative, just
do this. That's not what makes money exactly. Yeah, right, it
doesn't make money, but it does create people make money, absolutely, okay,
Because we always have this idea of the starving artist, you know.
Yeah, that's our our mental picture. So you're you're absolutely right. I
think the more we can distinguish ourselves and set ourselves apart, the better it
is for our own profession and for society. Oh, I think so definitely.
That's one of my biggest obstacles to the creative thinking class is that starving
artists paradigm. Also, some students are A plus students, and they didn't
get a plus by doing things outside the box. They're very good in the
box. Now the box is good. You should never leave the box.
Probably absolutely play with it too, and cut a hole in it. You
know. As a fellow educator, I remember my students coming up to me
every few minutes if I gave him something creative to do, Miss Ferrill,
Is this right? Miss Ferrill? Am I doing this right? Go sit
down, because you determine what's right and what's wrong usual? They were afraid
to use their creativity. They felt that I was to be pleased. I
was the one giving the grade, and so let me just give her what
she wants, rather than how I can express myself best. That's exactly right.
They want to have the exact rule. How do you do this?
Exactly? Yes? Does that happen in poetry as well? Where people think
that is this right or wrong? Is you know? I'm assuming that poetry
has that flexibility where you can just make up this whole new kind of genre
if you will. Well, there is that, you can make up a
whole new genre. But you can also use the old ancient forms, and
people do the sonnet, the villainel, the sistina, these old poetry forms.
You know, I tell us about it, okay, Well, um,
like two roads diverge into yellow Wood or Shakespeare's sonnets. It's a form,
okay, And the good thing about it is that actually helps you.
Right if you follow a form, Okay, I gotta do this or right,
I have these words to fit into that. I could see that like
a high qu because it gives you structure, and as a beginner, we
would need structure exactly as a matter of fact, yesterday with some with some
ninety year old students, we wrote high ku. Most of them had never
heard of hiku, or they heard of it. They had no idea what
it was. Everybody loved doing hiku and they counted syllables with their fingers as
I showed them. That's the easiest way to go, and so yeah,
so form helps you. A matter of fact, that's where they they were
least fearful about the form, although they did say this takes a lot of
work. I said, this is not easy. I said, well,
do you want easy classes here? I don't think they really. Do you
want to be stimulated? Yes, When I was about eight or nine months
pregnant, I wrote a very long poem for my daughter. I would love
to send that to you so you can read it. And it took me
quite some time. It took me about five hours to write. And how
I started, I've never taken poetry classes, I've never written poetry before.
This was just out of my head. And I started by getting some keywords
that I wanted her to have for her lifetime. I started with those keywords,
and then from those keywords, I chose words that rhymed with those keywords,
and then I separated them by little tiny paragraphs, and that you know,
That's how I started the poem. So I've never taken a poetry class.
What does a poetry class consist of? And what does it teach to
respond to your poem? First, you did invent a form. You had
a complete structure in a form. You want these words, you want a
rhyme for these words, and you want paragraphs. It's sort of like saying
a stanza or a length. So what you asked about a poetry workshop or
a poetry class? Yeah, poetry. What does this consist of? And
what do people you know learn? Well? I do them sometimes and back
frock creative thinking. We do a lot of poetry, but we don't call
it that. When I was at Columbia University, it's basically these big deal
poets, you know, at a table, like we're sitting at here,
and we go and they talk or she talks, and we go over mostly
what we wrote and we get feedback from people. And I remember from Joseph
Brotzky he said, okay, remember a poem and a great poetry by Udin
and write it down like a hundred times. Now we learned that in like
second grade, right a lot of times. Yeah, that's graduate school at
Columbia University from Nobel proads winning poets. This is what they teach. So
that's what it's about. It's about getting feedback from your community. And that's
also creative aging. Yeah, that's valuable to my students at in Clifton.
Now, you know, at one time, when I first started teaching many
years ago, I actually had my students memorized poetry like it, Yes,
and you know, it's just a good mind exercise, and then I would
have them recited for their parents. I retired a few years ago. We
stopped that entirely. I mean because the administration said, well, there's really
no benefit to that, which I disagree with. Yes, so it went
by the wayside like most arts usually do. But anyway, how can we
be creative with math and science? How can we incorporate that into creativity.
That's a good one, because I'm not a step back. Some research on
creativity with math and science, and I like working with that. First of
all, you can come up with mathematics. Now, what is this the
Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences? I actually okay, And it shows the amount of
the number format of trees in a formation of trees in an orchard, you
know, Okay, And so if I want to write about orchards, I'll
write my poetry with the form that calls cothers five seven, six, and
I'll go, do I want five words five syllables? So I'll follow the
math for that. That's a great way to teach you. That's really cool.
Fact. At Mount Clair State for a while there, I was the
poetry advisor to physics and math. Oh my goodness, student project to come
over and how can I write poetry about the science of juggling, which there
is math too. Yeah, yeah, so that's how I feel about math.
I think it's important to put into poetry, all right, And so
what do you feel like? How do you feel about limericks or poetry from
Shell Silverstein, which I you know, as a fourth and fifth grade teacher
absolutely loved to expose my students too. And it's so playful and so much
fun when you can rhyme words. Absolutely was also a songwriter, shel Silvers
and I love Johnny Cash as a boy named Sue, which has a lot
of communication for today in various various ways and so that's poetry too. I
love she'el Silverstein. However, I did one point have a middle school class
in Middlesex County that I was teaching, and the mother wanted her son to
be able to write shells silver stain or what's her name? Doctor SEUs?
Oh yeah, okay, yeah, I appreciate that. That's not what we're
doing. Okay, that's not the curriculum, I muses. Okay, right,
so so some people really want that. I don't think anything's wrong with
that at all. Yeah, And it's a fun way to learn when you
can rhyme words. Yes, it is, yes, especially for younger How
about humor? Do you use humor in your poetry or as humor even used?
Is that a thing? Oh? I think it's a good question.
I think I use humor. I don't even know am using humor, especially
in classes. People laugh several times in classic Oh what was that about?
Okay, I obviously said something funny. Now, just being metaphoric, just
talking about how you saw something, how you feel about something, getting a
tiny story about what happened this morning on the way in. All of those
things are humor. And yes, I think humor is in poetry. I
put the dramatics sometimes or serious to me, which you might have to think,
as you mentioned, to interpret. Yeah, but I think humor is
important to add to that too. You can do do humor with language with
types of rhyme, and you mentioned rhyme before. You can also do subtle
rhymes. You can rhyme half the word. You can rhyme the end and
the beginning of these words and put another word into the next line. That
way, people don't quite know that it's yes, right, it's not cat
and that, but but it hooks them and it's quite nuanced. But they
go, it's nuanced. That's a good word for it, and they go
that's good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. I do
like it. It resonates. I think it's analogous to when you're selling your
house. Wow, you clean the switch plate, You've change the switch plates,
okay, because this fingerprints all over them, and the numbers on your
house they're right first impressions. Okay, very absolutely. Do poets get writer's
block, Well, that's a good question. Yes you can, but you
can also just keep working. I'm writing. Buck doesn't matter. I've got
to work. O good. He made his slim living on poetry. So
he wrote all the time, he smoked siggy buds, he drank drinks,
he ate food, and he wrote poetry. So you can just make yourself
do it. So amazing. So now how would you approach the person is
I have absolutely no creativity. I don't know how to write poetry. I
don't have a creative thought in my head. Or do you do you think
everybody is capable of writing a poem? Yes? I think everybody is capable
of writing a poem because I've done it with students who say exactly this and
they in fact do so. Yes, I think everybody is capable of creative
thinking. And there, as we mentioned, social paradigms that blocked this.
Believes that you're not going to make any money at it. This is a
waste of your time. So what you have an idea? We've heard these
things from people who love us. Sometimes they the best for us. But
we even write at Montclair State Theater reviews for things we've never seen. These
students have never been to live theater. Okay, now they have to write
a New York Times style review filled with the language and the metaphor of that
and what they can produce is amazing, but I help them do it with
some toys and tools. So we listen to the elements of music or the
elements of dance and write the metaphors for what you saw, and the writing
can be amazing. Oh you use music too, absolutely for sure. That's
really cool. So how can we age creatively besides poetry? What else can
you teach us to age creatively? Good? Well, you probably should make
a commitment to yourself to do something creative every day, and it can be
something new and creative. You can invent something, put it on your post
it note and put on your refrigerator. Make a commitment to doing something.
I make a commitment. You can write in your journal, you can take
workshops. There's probably a lot of things online you do too. So it's
all about coming out of your comfort zone, yes, and saying I don't
think I can do this for I'm to try anyway, trying thing. Okay,
Wow, So this has just been absolutely fascinating and I want to go
home and write a poem. I would love to get your idea on the
poem I wrote for my daughter. Yeah, I love that. So,
Doctor Parker, if our audience wants to reach out and find out more about
your work. How could they do that? Well, they can send me
an email, okay, okay, so give us those Christopher Parker eight one
zero at Gmail. Also, I have a couple of websites. Heres,
go ahead, doctor Dr Christopher W. Parker. My wife helped me nickname
that one dot com. Okay, Dr christ Christopher W. Parkers. Enough?
Uh Living poetically? Oh god? I like that poetic? And do
you feature some of your own poems on there that people could read, or
poems of your students. That's a good question. I feature access to some
of that things I will teach or methodologies I've used, and you can use
them right there if you want. All righty, Well, we look forward
to looking at your work and further investigating the websites and the programs. I
would love to know more about the program so you have that information and when
the dates on your website, I'll put that on. Yeah, why not?
I think you would like that our audience as well, because we'd like
to know what you're doing in the future. So you'll be going back to
MSU in September and what we'll be teaching. I'm also at Felician University teaching
philosophy and I'm at Caldwell teaching writing classes. Look, i gotta teach you
how to be ambitious. One campus. Nothing is further than seven miles.
That's not bad. Okay, well, thank you so much, doctor Parker
and h yeah it really was. We need to invite you again. Yes,
we invite our audience to stay tuned next week. But in the meantime,
go home and write of home that Thanks, ladies and gents. We'll
see you next time. Bye bye now