19552 GW Mag 26_Final_singles - Flipbook - Page 14
my feelings,” she said. But Sebree encourages students to do
research for their writing. For a poem on a flower, for
example, she wants them to know every part of their subject
from petals to stem. “Those textural details bring something
really beautiful to the poem,” she said.
Sebree spent five years researching Mistress. Not only did
she draw on her internship at Monticello, but she actually
wrote in Thomas Jefferson’s bedroom. Before the museum
site opened at 9 a.m. each morning, she would sit alone on
his bedroom floor and imagine his private conversations
with Hemings.
“I wanted to capture what it sounded like, what it looked
like as the light changed during the seasons,” she said, noting
that most of the poems in Heming’s voice were written after
a year living in Charlottesville. “It was a wild moment to be
in this space—particularly a Black woman in this space—and
taking charge of a narrative that so many people historically
couldn’t control for themselves.”
As an educator, Sebree encourages all her students—from
aspiring poets to chemistry majors—to bring their own unique
interests into the poetry conversation. In her undergraduate
Poetry as Remix Cover and Sample class, students represent
poetry through spectrums like visual arts or even science
and the body.
“My classes are fun!” she exclaimed. Indeed, a typical
Sebree session may involve outings to museums or exploring
music as a framework for poetry. Her students might stroll
campus for 15 minutes and return to class to write about
what they saw. Or she may set them up with chaos
prompts—challenging them to write a poem with metaphor
or a description or containing only a handful of words.
“I tell them there’s not one way to write poetry. It’s about
finding your access point and developing from there,” she said.
Still, some students are initially skeptical about poetry.
“On the first day of class, they say ‘I hate poems. I’m only
here because it fits into my schedule,’” she said. “Usually,
“Someone asked
if I was writing an
auto-ethnography in
poetry. A character
study, a fiction,
a script.”
— FROM FIELD STUDY
they think poems are scary. That’s fine—I think they’re scary
too. But I hope to bring them over to poetry—which I have
successfully done!”
But even Sebree admits that, at a time when the humanities
can seem to be subsumed by politics and technology, she
sometimes finds herself justifying poetry’s worth—even to
herself. “I ask myself: Should I be doing something else with
these words than writing poems?” she said.
But she understands that in chaotic times, people often
turn to poetry to work through complicated or anxious
feelings. Poets, she said, can reveal fundamental truths
about the human experience in just a few words. “That
compressed form often resonates with people by speaking to
a larger experience in ultimately powerful and meaningful
ways,” she said.
Sebree is certain that poems will endure for generations.
“In 50, 100, 200 years, people will read poems and know what
it meant to live here and now,” she said. And she’s concerned
about the advent of AI, which she called “pretty bad at writing
poems.” But while she’s worried about technology’s effect on
critical thinking and writing skills, she doesn’t believe it will
ever replicate a poet’s ability to speak to human sensations
and emotional truths.
“Because trauma leaves a chemical marker. Because
the child follows the condition of the mother. Because
I need to know all the ways I will teach you to suffer.”
— FROM “GENESIS” IN BLUE OPENING
14 | www.columbian.gwu.edu
