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Follow-up to Reading at Risk links declines in reading with poorer academic and social outcomes

November 19, 2007

Washington, DC — Today, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announces the release of To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence, a new and comprehensive analysis of reading patterns in the United States. To Read or Not To Read gathers statistics from more than 40 studies on the reading habits and skills of children, teenagers, and adults. The compendium reveals recent declines in voluntary reading and test scores alike, exposing trends that have severe consequences for American society.

“The new NEA study is the first to bring together reliable, nationally representative data, including everything the federal government knows about reading,” said NEA Chairman Dana Gioia. “This study shows the startling declines, in how much and how well Americans read, that are adversely affecting this country’s culture, economy, and civic life as well as our children’s educational achievement.”

To Read or Not To Read expands the investigation of the NEA’s landmark 2004 report, Reading at Risk. While that report focused mainly on literary reading trends, To Read or Not To Read looks at all varieties of reading, including fiction and nonfiction genres in various formats such as books, magazines, newspapers, and online reading. Whereas the earlier report assessed reading among adults ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifge 18 and older, To Read or Not To Read analyzes reading trends for youth and adults, and readers of various education levels. To Read or Not To Read is unique for its consideration of reading habits alongside other behaviors and related outcomes including academic achievement, employment, and community involvement. (More here)

Full PDF of Report

In an effort to improve my questionable grammar skills and to find another excuse to keep the pen on the pad, I have joined a fiction writing group. It’s a loose gathering but everyone brings their own unique skills – we have two poets, one fictionist, one visual artist and a journalist – and, most importantly, everyone acts like a pro. We start on time, end on time and the comments on the writing is direct but constructive; a great environment for me to keep expanding my fiction writing muscles.

Don’t get it twisted, the focus is still on poetry and all the stories I have generated are just backstories to what is going on in Anywhere Avenue. It’s also an extension of a writing exercise I got once from Patricia Smith.

Find a poem, then write a short story based on the poem, then write a poem based on the short story.

So I hope to gather all these fiction pieces and then write poems based on them. Or I could just try to start submitting them to fiction contests.

Anyhows, here is an excerpt from the story I’ll be presenting tonight. It’s based on both the text and the epigraph of Jeff McDaniel’s The Foxhole Manifesto.

The God of Near Misses (excerpt)

I see the God that exists in the roll of dice against a wall. It doesn’t matter who is throwing the dice, if it’s an old hustler or some new jack, they both have that same look on their face when there hands are shaking harder than creation and they have no idea what they’re going to throw. But you can’t tell that from the look in their eye. Oh, no. They are already plotting what they’re going to do after the dice land. How they’re going to spend the next couple of crumpled bills they’re going to add to their pockets, or how to convince the congregated that they need to stick around for one more go of the dice. Now let me tell you, that there is some real God. Not caring whether you willed into existence a mighty seven or a hard six, but how you are going to make that creation live on after you.

Spindle is proud to announce its nominees for the 2007 Pushcart Prize, as selected by Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, Guy LeCharles Gonzalez:

* 10,000 Fs, by Willie Perdomo
* All I’d Leave Behind, by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
* Depression, too, is a kind of fire, by Taylor Mali
* GED, Raina Leon
* Great Expectations, by Liz Dolan
* Succumbing, by Patricia Smith

More info here

Spindle: NYC in the first person

AUDIENCE (Courtesy of Merriam-Webster)
1: the act or state of hearing
2 a: a formal hearing or interview [an audience with the pope]
b: an opportunity of being heard [I would succeed if I were once given audience]
3 a: a group of listeners or spectators
b: a reading, viewing, or listening public
4: a group of ardent admirers or devotees : following

I am digging this definition because it places a primary emphasis on getting your voice heard, and then when one has achieved that state of being heard, either by searching or creating a venue, then this leads right into the second phase of the definition.

But now how exactly is the poem heard? In a perfect world, the poet would be seeking both an oral venue to be heard and a print venue to be read. But that would be a perfect world. The real world is chock full of people who have been writing for a while and have never envisioned reading their work to others for any number of personal reasons. On the flip side, this non-perfect world is also full of people that think the only power of the poem is in the immediate act of communication, that there is little to no worth in having the poem published. Both these mentalities create divisiveness in poetry that shouldn’t exist but somehow still does.

Basically what I am saying is this, a poem read on an open mic has every potential to be as good as a poem in a print journal, a poem read at the National Poetry Slam can be just as crappy as a poem published in Best American Poetry, the venues where these poems are presented shouldn’t have anything to do with the merit of the poems themselves. But they do and why is that? Audience.

But not the audience in definitions #1, 2 or 3 but hops all the way forward to the audience in definition #4. Once we go out and seek a specific audience, thing change. Specific audience means specific criteria and that means the chance for a poem to succeed on its own merit diminishes.

I still stand behind the advice I put out in my last post. The audience wants you to succeed. Nobody shows up to an event to have his or her expectations shattered. Now the only x-factor is: Who is that audience?

Is it the audience from definition #1? What is that audiences natural state of hearing? If there natural state of hearing is that they want to be wowed, they are seeking that next great poem, they want another exciting poem in their lives; then you have nowhere to go but up. From your title to your last line all you can do is try to build, build, build and have them leave satisfied.

However, if the audience’s natural state of hearing is that they are looking to tear the poem apart from get go, they believe only a very few precious poems exist in the world, they want to add to their personal slush pile of poor verse; then you are pretty much doomed.

The reality of poetry is somewhere in the middle and since there is no perfect world and hence no perfect middle, I am always going to advise folks to lean toward the audience that wants you to succeed. Anything else will lead you down to over compensating in other areas that have very little to do with poetry.

So now let’s talk about definition 3, the audience you will probably find at most venues. The advantage of this audience is that they will most likely come with little prejudice against you, if anything they are already heaping you with praise because the curator has hyped up your reading to the fullest (probably from the bio the reader has already supplied) or they are reading you in a respected publication that generally doesn’t let them down. This audience is great to just read/have the work read and then wait for a reaction. Most of the time, you wont get a reaction. If the audiences expectations are met, they will just keep on going and seek the next poet.

I don’t know about y’all, but audiences like this bum me out because they don’t give me any kind of critical feedback. They don’t let me know what worked or what didn’t work in the poem(s). If I’m lucky they might tell me what they liked but usually don’t/can’t tell me why they liked it. In the print world, this is akin to the standard rejection/acceptance letter. And so it goes. You go to a middle of the road audience and you get a middle of the road reaction.

So back we go to definition #4, the devotees. The opinionated ones. If you are lucky, they will tell you your poems are good and why. If you are really lucky, they will tell you your poems are in need of help, and point you to where you can get that help.

This is the reason I hit an open mic in the first place, to find an audience that was willing to help me succeed, but I knew success wasn’t going to be a happy road full of smiles and thumbs up which is what my family and friends (Bless em all) where giving me.

I was fortunate enough to find that kind of tough love audience at Bar13. A place where all the definitions of live oral venue audience existed. There was just enough casual listeners, emerging poets and seasoned veterans waiting to hear the next good poem and that was just enough to encourage me to keep coming back but also knowing that I had to keep working hard to keep their attention and expectations for a good poem filled.