Traveling

Stanzas

Chautauqua

Makerspace

A partnership between Chautauqua Literary Arts and the Wick Poetry Center’s Traveling Stanzas at Kent State University. The Chautauqua Poetry Makerspace and this microsite are made possible through philanthropic support, with special appreciation to Kate Dillon Hogan in memory of James A. Hogan.

Chautuqua 2024 Community Poem

Chautauquans, we’re writing a poem together. That’s right, each week, we want to hear your thoughts, read your words, feel your feels about the morning lectures, about what you’ve learned or liked, or been inspired by, about what’s been on your mind and what’s being discussed across the grounds.

How it Works

Each week, we will give you a prompt, then invite you to submit an original poem, or meaningful thought or phrase (10-30 lines max) — by Thursday at five o’clock of each week, responding to the week’s theme. Then, we will select lines or words or stanzas from some of your submissions and combine them into one single community poem. The final poem, representing the combined work of multiple contributors will be shared at the Writers’ Center Community Reading on Fridays at 12:15 p.m. on the porch of the Literary Arts Center at Alumni Hall and will be available online. This is going to be powerful. Can you feel it?

Weekly Prompts

Week 1: The Evolution of the Modern Presidency
The United States presidency has undergone profound transformation since its inception. What is our expectation for future leaders? How is, and should, our country evolve, for the better?

Please begin, or end (or incorporate somewhere) your submission with the phrase:
For tomorrow, leave…

For example:
For tomorrow, leave hope
and history
like twins depending
on each other
for survival.
Week 2: The AI Revolution
Book: Future Tense by Martha Brockenbrough
 
As Martha Brockenbrough argues in her book, Future Tense, AI will transform every aspect of our lives. With that transformation comes both excitement and fear. What are your hopes and fears for this new technology? 

Prompt: Please begin with, or end, or incorporate somewhere in your submission, the phrase:  Speak of machines thinking… – quote by Alan Turing, quoted in Future Tense, pg. 22

For example: 
A generation raised on I, Robot 
speaks of machines thinking  
in hushed, hesitant tones, 
voices clipped like a coded language
Week 3: What We Got Wrong: Learning from Our Mistakes
Books: When Crack Was King by Donovan X. Ramsey and The Devil’s Element by Dan Egan
 
Looking back, it is easy to see the mistakes we have made, as individuals and as a society. How do we move forward? How do we work to fix problems we have caused? How do we strike a balance between acknowledging mistakes and moving forward? 
 
Prompt: Please begin with, or end, or incorporate somewhere in your submission, the phrase:  Struggle remains ours... – Dan Egan, Introduction to The Devil’s Element

For Example: 
Mistake. 
From Old Norse, mistaka, 
to take in error. 
We take too much, 
give too little.  
I await the celebration of the missed take, 
and today, step forward into  
the struggle that remains ours.
Week 4: Eight Billion and Counting: The Future of Humankind in a Crowded World
In a crowded world, some stories ring louder than others, and unfortunately, some continue to encounter silencing and erasure. How do we ensure the stories that need to be told are heard? How can we hold close the stories that connect us, no matter our identity? Can we expand humanity’s story to include narratives of the non-human and other-than-human beings with whom we share this world? 

Prompt: Please begin with, or end, or incorporate somewhere in your submission, the phrase: We all become stories... –Margaret Atwood, quoted in the 12th edition of Chautauqua, Privacy and Secrets issue.

For Example: 
We all become stories, 
a knowledge our ancestors  
understood all too well.  
News stories, kitchen table odysseys,  
the word, the gospel, gossip,  
the cautionary tale, a bildungsroman,  
your favorite fairytale, a rustle of pages 
between fingertips. We all become stories. 
How will our descendants 
tell ours? 
Week 5: Our Greatest Challenges (That We Can Actually Do Something About) 
The challenges facing our world and our country are many in number and significant in degree, but we are not powerless. What challenges do you face personally and collectively? Why? How do we come together to face the obstacles in our path? 

Prompt: Please begin with, or end, or incorporate somewhere in your submission, the phrase: launch yourself on every wave... – Henry David Thoreau, quoted in the 13th edition of Chautauqua Journal, Americana issue.

For Example: 
If the struggle remains ours, 
I ask that you take my hand.  
Together we can set an anchor, 
leap as the water comes in, 
launch yourself on every wave. 
Week 6: Exploring the Transformative Power of Music with Renée Fleming
The power of music is in its ability to motivate and carry social movements, and enrich our lives in ways innumerate. As we’ll see from Renée Fleming and Eric Gansworth’s memoir-in-verse, Apple: Skin to the Core, music can do more than inspire, soothe and heal — it can transform. How has music impacted your life? 

Prompt: Please begin with, or end, or incorporate somewhere in your submission, the phrase: music is the mediator... – a Beethoven quote, which appeared in the 7th edition of Chautauqua Journal, Music and Words issue.

For Example: 
Music is the mediator  
of our happiest moments, 
of strife, of grief.  
A ballad of shared history, 
a lyric for the moments 
words alone cannot reach.
Week 7: Wonder and Awe: A Week Celebrating Chautauqua’s Sesquicentennial
Perhaps it is part of the human condition to seek out and peer at all that situates us on a scale of grandeur, from the infinite to the infinitesimal. This week, we’ll celebrate the wonder in the stories around us, those that encourage us to pursue awe in our everyday lives as we set out to build a greater understanding of our shared humanity. What are the big and small moments of wonder that still sit with you? 

Prompt: Please begin with, or end, or incorporate somewhere in your submission, the phrase: It is this way with wonder... – Aimee Nezhukumatathil, World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments

For Example: 
What is the scale of grandeur? 
I find the sublime on mountain tops, 
the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Rockys, 
the mountains in my heart. 
I feel the ascent to the summit everywhere, 
the breath in my lungs sometimes 
as hard to draw with my feet on the ground, 
as it can be when I am up in the clouds. 
It is this way with wonder, 
the emotions, the world, so great  
and yet so small. Take solace in it all. 
Week 8: Water: Crisis, Beauty and Necessity—A Week in Partnership with National Geographic 
As an elemental force, water’s reach touches everything. We are mostly water — even down to our bones — and the planet we call home is mostly covered by water. It is vital to life, and to our way of life. In what way does water inspire you? Surprise you? Encourage you? Entice you? 

Prompt: Please begin with, or end, or incorporate somewhere in your submission, the phrase: What emerges at low tide... – Sabrina Imbler, author of How Far the Light Reaches, from “What Emerges at Low Tide” 

For Example: 
What emerges at low tide 
reminds us that the water is a body, 
that carries the weight of others, 
that speaks, whispers, wails. 
Often times we take the sound 
of waves, of rushing water 
for granted and we forget 
water is life. Water is life. 
Week 9: Rising Together: Our Century of Creativity and Collaboration with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra 
Where do these moments of translating and transcending difference exist in our society, and what can we learn from them? Where can our journeys, both individual and communal, take us? 

Prompt 1: Please begin with, or end, or incorporate somewhere in your submission, the phrase: The 21st will be the century of integration... – Wynton Marsalis, “All Rise” 
Prompt 2: Please begin with, or end, or incorporate somewhere in your submission, the phrase: Jazz is... 
 
For Example: 
Jazz is the epitome of how 
the 21st will be the century of integration, 
of the multitude of ways we mold and move. 
A discordance of notes, a melody, 
through which we transition, transcend. 
Permissions
By providing your Submission, which includes your name and likeness, you agree that you have read, understand and accept the following terms in relation to the content and information (your "Submission") you are providing:
 
You are submitting content pursuant to a callout by CHQ wherein we create unique poetry based on submissions. You understand that you are submitting content for the purpose of having CHQ use that content to create a new poem or poems ("Poem") with the material you submit. You must be over the age of 18 to submit material.
 
You will retain copyright in your Submission, but agree that CHQ may edit, modify, use, excerpt, publish, adapt or otherwise make derivative works from your Submission and use your Submission or derivative works, in whole or in part in any media or format and/or use the Submission or Poem for journalistic and/or promotional purposes generally, and may allow others to do so. You understand that the Poem created by CHQ will be a new creative work and may be distributed and the Poem and programs can be separately subject to copyright protection. Your Submission does not plagiarize or otherwise infringe any third-party copyright, moral rights or any other intellectual property rights or similar rights. You have not copied any part of your Submission from another source. If your Submission is selected for inclusion in the Poem, you will be acknowledged in a list of contributors or otherwise receive appropriate credit, but failure to do so shall not be deemed a breach of your rights.

Contribute a Stanza
to the Chautauqua 2024 Community Poem

Use the Wick Poetry Center's Thread application below to share your voice and view responses from the community.

Share Your Voice
View the Gallery
View the Map

Dreaming at Chautauqua

Share your voice by using a suite of digital expressive writing tools, such as Emerge (an erasure poetry app), Thread (community-generated poems), and the Listening Wall (thematically-driven touch-screen poetry displays). Choose a theme, follow a prompt, and print to share.

Contribute a Stanza
to the Thread Poem

View Responses

Create an Erasure Poem
with Emerge

Create with Emerge

Create a Poem
with the Listening Wall

Create with Listening Wall

Featured Projects

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Science

Partnering with Poets for Science founder, poet, and environmental spokesperson Jane Hirshfield, the Wick Poetry Center joined the 2017 March for Science on the National Mall in Washington D.C.

Open Poets for Science

Global Peace
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The Wick Poetry Center invites people from around the world to contribute a line or stanzas to a global community peace poem titled, “My Voice.” This project commemorates the 50th anniversary of the May 4, 1970 shootings at Kent State University, with themes that reflect peace, conflict transformation, and advocacy.

Open Global Peace Poem

Earth
Stanzas

In collaboration with the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary, Earth Stanzas is an interactive online poetry project in honor of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.

Open Earth Stanzas

Learn More

Chautauqua Assembly

Join the Chautauqua community in exploring critical issues of the day through a range of experiences—lectures, artistic experiences, master and enrichment courses, and conversations—that combine to call you to your best self for a better world.

Visit Chautauqua Assembly

Literary Arts Workshops

Learn more about the Literary Arts Workshops this summer.

Visit Literary Arts

Traveling Stanzas

The Chautauqua Poetry Makerspace was created in partnership between Chautauqua Literary Arts and the Wick Poetry Center’s Traveling Stanzas at Kent State University. Traveling Stanzas community arts projects bring poetry to people’s everyday lives through innovative methods and digital platforms.

Visit Traveling Stanzas

Get in Touch

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About the Chautauqua Poetry Makerspace

The Chautauqua Poetry Makerspace was created in partnership between Chautauqua Literary Arts and the Wick Poetry Center’s Traveling Stanzas at Kent State University. The makerspace has been a unique staple of the Chautauqua Literary Arts program for the last three years. Throughout the summer season, any visitor can flex their creative muscles and make a poem using the online poetry makerspace. 

The Chautauqua Poetry Makerspace and this microsite are made possible through philanthropic support, with special appreciation to Kate Dillon Hogan in memory of James A. Hogan.

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