Group bridges forms of art, poetry

  Courtesy of Marplot Poets Marplot Poets Farnoosh
Fathi (left) and Edy Pickens pose at
Gallery 2211 in downtown L.A. at a Sept. 15 poetry reading.

By Michelle V. Gonzales
Daily Bruin Contributor

Art often imitates life, yet art through the Marplot Poets
brings life to many forms.

The members of Marplot Poets, a UCLA-based group of writers and
artists, gather together the elaborateness of language, ambiguity
of visual arts and the fluidity of poetry. And then they disperse
it to not only a crowd those familiar with the art forms, but also
to a community with its own unique forms of art.

The Marplot Poets is holding its second reading from the
group’s “Mascara” series this Saturday Nov. 17 at
4 p.m. at Gallery 2211 on 2211 North Broadway in downtown Los
Angeles.

The group derived the series’ name from a quote by Sharon
Olds: “You got mascara. Use it.” The readings break
through the thick layers of art’s mystery and will simplify
its meanings. The Poets help translate artists’ messages to
the audience in order for them to gain a greater understanding of
art.

The first of the readings, also held at the gallery, was held on
Sept. 15, featuring art pieces and literature based on the wake
left after the tragedies of Sept. 11. A collage created with
paints, beads and other crafts was part of the event, along with a
tribute painting.

“A group collage [acts] as a means of
self-expression,” said Amaranth Borsuk, a third-year student
majoring in English. “It was a means for all of us to get our
emotions out. It bridged the gap between spectator and
poet.”

The group holds readings every other month at the gallery. The
theme for this Saturday’s poetry reading is
“ekphrastic” poetry ““ poems about art. The
reading will feature an opening reading by Professor Stephen
Yenser, head of the English department’s creative writing
program, who will also be discussing ekphrastic poetry.

Yenser describes ekphrastic poetry simply as “poetry in
art,” a n ancient tradition with Greek roots. Yenser will
share the European, western aspect of ekphrastic poetry and
exemplify of how poetry and art intertwine.

A special invitational reading from the Watts Prophets and
children of the Watts Towers Art Center will also be featured to
end the night.

The Watts Prophets will complement Yenser’s literary works
with the Prophet’s own experience of visual art and
literature. The reading hopes to illustrate the link between visual
art and poetry and to make the audience feel comfortable with both
art forms.

The group first originated in the spring of 2000 after meeting
through several of the Hammer museum’s poetry seminars and
workshops with a desire to incorporate community service with art,
poetry and writing.

The group’s actual name came about in a writing class in
which a typo lead to the discovery of the definition of marplot,
literally meaning “to mess up a plot,” yet the Marplot
Poets have adapted the word and incorporated it into their
message.

“The plot that we want to mar is that sense of poetry as a
rarefied object with very little access to most people,” said
Maggi Michele, a UCLA graduate student in the world arts and
cultures department and the main organizer of the event.

“A major theme of our readings is that we really want to
not have the high art of western European poetry being so sort of
forbidding and cryptic because it’s something, … [where]
you kind of need to know a little something about it before it
starts to be appealing,” Michele added.

The event foreshadows great plans for the intertwining of art.
The group has plans to work with youth from the Watts area, in
hopes of bringing together two cultures.

“What we’re trying to do is to reach out to them as
peers and to begin to form what we call a poetry exchange,”
said Michele. “It’s a series of things that build on
each other that interact dynamically “¦ and for [the students]
to meet in what I want to be a cultural exchange that brings their
personal experience in poetry and music, because poetry and music
are pretty inseparable.”

Music is indefinitely a large part of the Watts youth culture
and the Poets hope to bring in their own personal experiences.

“That’s our mission, to break that wall both between
different cultures ,” Michele said. The curriculum for an
upcoming summer session for the Watts youth will include examining
artists like Digable Planets and Lauryn Hill

Marplot poet Edy Pickens, a graduate student from Indiana
University with a master’s degree in fine arts, describes the
creative brainstorming process in developing the curriculum for the
students.

“Basically [the group] inspires a lot of talk about
curriculum and what we could explore with them and that is what
makes us excited about the whole thing,” Pickens said.
“[We picked] what songs we knew that will inspire them and
[entice] discussing a cultural history and where different people
are and how we can share that with each other and how it can
influence our writing.”

The Marplot Poets’ plan for the Watts youth is reaching
its final stages, and the group hopes to put its mission into
action.

The Marplot Poets will also not only outreach to the Watts
children but also to its own UCLA poets.

New poets are encouraged to read their literary works as an
initiation into the group. The Marplot Poets include Maggi Michel,
Edy Pickens, John Cross, Ahna Fender, Farnoosh Fathi, Amaranth
Borsuk, and Lee Einhorn. Einhorn will read for the first time this
Saturday as a member of the group.

“The Organ,” the group’s upcoming newsletter
acts as a literary outlet for writers and mainly focuses on poetry.
The newsletter includes writings and images from the poets and will
be available to the UCLA community.

Both the Marplot Poets and the Watts Towers Art Center seek
donations of writing books and supplies and volunteers to implement
future joint programs in the arts for the children of the area.