This week has been spent thinking, reflecting, and preparing for the next poetry symposium. I have looked all the way back to the opening blogs available on the blog space

https://blogs.canterbury.ac.uk/partnersinlearning/category/partners-in-learning/poetic-nursing-heart/

There is a defined theme of wanting to share and talk. It’s a small organic community that bubbles back up in excitement when the dates are released on twitter. I can understand why it’s not for everyone but I feel sad that more people don’t come to simply observe spoken word poetry. I feel that it needs to be more open and inclusive to those people who have maybe never considered poetic expression.

Over the last couple of years we have managed to make a few dendritic connections with other poetic synapses around the globe. We have also managed to inform and shape the learning of the student population within the university. The blogs engagements range from the students’ voice, international academics and ancillary staff to academic staff in the faculty.

We have 16 blogs already hosted and they have managed to attract a good number of views. This is wonderful and a great start to a continued passion project.. However the organic nature of the Butterfly flame is to remain fairly minimal in its level of engagement. The personal impact however seems to be quite exceptional. This would be consistent with the book I am reading on the stages of self’ (Howe, 1990) which was an exploration of the nature of the dramatic monologue in poetry. The works of Byron, Browning, Blake and Tennyson alongside French poetry were very much seen as a method of defining the state of self. Almost as if the soul was looking for a literal anchor within the prose.

I have seen this happen within both the symposium but also engagements through twitter. I have had a number of wonderful conversations with poets online. The questions I ask is why do you write poetry and how does it make you feel?

There seems to be so little space where we are truly defined. The common Spector today is the social media persona. The idea of this being a representation of who we are is a big worry as the image does not convey meaning. We are slowly being made objective by subjectivity. This then creates (Festinger’s 1957) cognitive dissonance theory as it suggests that we have an inner drive to hold all our attitudes and behaviour in harmony and avoid disharmony (or dissonance). This is known as the principle of cognitive consistency. When there is an inconsistency between attitudes or behaviours (dissonance), something must change to eliminate the dissonance. We have individuals who are referred to as social media influencers but I would call them compliance monitors. The greater compliance the more influence they perceive they have…

Within the space we create for the poetic expression of self, profession, ideals, dreams, fantasy, humour and all that exists in the spaces between. I continue to question validity but I am always rewarded with a sense that it’s a good thing.

#Poeticnursingheart free from social media influencers I think…..

Next symposium September the 13^th on the Medway Campus..

Hoping to have live feeds to international contributors,

Any information please contact td179@canterbury.ac.uk