Authors bring poetry, classics to life in Fort Scott

British poet Geraldine Green autographs a copy of her work as performance poet George Wallace talks to an audience member after the reading Thursday afternoon at the Gordon Parks Museum inside the Danny and Willa Ellis Family Fine Arts Center on the FSCC campus.(Angelique McNaughton/Tribune)

Visiting performance poet George Wallace spent a little more than an hour Thursday afternoon exploring the underlying issues faced within society as witnessed and articulated by some of America's best-known authors and poets.

Wallace performed more than 15 pieces alongside British poet Geraldine Green for about 50 people yesterday at the Gordon Parks Museum inside the Danny and Willa Ellis Family Fine Arts Center on the Fort Scott Community College campus. Wallace is in town as part of a 10-day tour around Kansas, coinciding with a more extensive national tour as a writer-in- residence at the Walt Whitman Birthplace in West Hills, N.Y.

Gordon Parks Center Director Jill Warford said Wallace's performance is "one of those events we love to bring to the center.

Performance poet George Wallace recites a poem on Thursday afternoon at the Gordon Parks Museum. Wallace performed works by Gordon Parks, Allen Ginsberg, Langston Hughes and other American authors.(Angelique McNaughton/Tribune)

"I think it is really nice that we could bring him, especially when we are having the Fort Scott Family and Friends reunion" this weekend, Warford said during the introduction.

Standing at the podium wearing a long-sleeved black button-up shirt, black pants and black rimmed glasses, the native New Yorker recited from the works of authors such as Walt Whitman, Gordon Parks, Langston Hughes, Allen Ginsberg, Henry David Thoreau, Carl Sandburg and John Steinbeck.

"Underneath, we all still have that underlying dignity, even if it becomes corrupted," Wallace told those attending. "A number of American authors have something to say about the human conduct. And like Gordon Parks, an underlying theme (in their work) is the universal spirit inside ourselves -- that human dignity and worth -- and ultimately if it is possible, how to redeem your society and yourself and find a new identity... These are all things that we are going to look at."

Performance poet George Wallace recites a poem on Thursday afternoon at the Gordon Parks Museum. Wallace performed works by Gordon Parks, Allen Ginsberg, Langston Hughes and other American authors.(Angelique McNaughton/Tribune)

His voice echoed throughout the center as he read Hughes' "Freedom's Plow."

"Out of labor -- white hands and black hands -- came the dream, the strength, the will and the way to build America," and Ginsberg's "Sunflower Sutra" -- "we're not our skin of grime, we're not dread bleak, dusty imageless locomotives, we're golden sunflowers inside."

Audience members young and old, applauded and laughed or nodded in understanding throughout the performance.

Often referring back to Parks and the photographs displayed around him, Wallace said he used photography to capture the underlying dignity and majesty "even in the most oppressed circumstances.

"He saw it; he recognized it," Wallace said.

Various political and socioeconomic themes -- like nature, reform, redemption, choices and camaraderie -- led the performance and choice of works. Green's readings were woven in throughout the afternoon. She opened with an Emily Dickinson poem, and when prompted read Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou.

Asked what she hopes audience members took from the performance, Green said, "the recognition or reminder that we are all the same under the skin.

"We may stumble along the way, but if we still keep that spark alive we can remind ourselves of who we are and what we can become," Green said. "And also not just other humans, but actually remember that everything else we share the earth with is also worthy of dignity and respect."

Fort Scott native LaCretia Grant, now living in Oklahoma City, was in town for the Fort Scott Friends and Family Reunion and attended the poetry reading on a whim. Not an enthusiast but an avid reader, Grant took notes, marking pieces she wants to revisit. She said she enjoyed the variety of poems read, especially Angelou's "Still I Rise."

"He hit a variety of poets," Grant said. "Poetry is broad, not just one demographic and I think from every poet you can get something out of it."

Understanding the relationships between details in the poems and people's personal lives in America today is what Wallace said he wanted everyone to understand.

"Specifically how literary figures in America have been speaking to the underlying issues of being alive," he said. "That's big; but if people somehow come away from this saying they somehow understand their world better, then I did my job. That's the big ticket. And I want them to have fun."

For more information about Green, visit http://www.poetrypf.co.uk/geraldinegreenpage.html.

For more information about Wallace, visit www.waltwhitman.org