Pirouette On Mars
In September 1945 WWII ended, and the world returned to their –recently more advanced– everyday life.
The world changed in small ways that made big impacts.
Woman were removed from the workforce to make room for men, many babies were born, people settled down, the economic world grew, and there were all sorts of new technological advancements. The war, while horrible, was a necessary event to reach where the world is today. It’s the butterfly effect.
In the 1950’s a group of anti-authority poets emerged and created something called the Beatnik Generation, and were known as Beatnik Poets. What does that mean? Angry poetry. That’s what it means. Many pieces of writing questioning the world in itself being presented to the world. The beatniks were aggressive in the form of poetry… which is awesome.
Some well known beatniks poets are:
In 1977 the hit movie Star Wars: A New Hope was released. It’s one of the most well known movies to date. On December 19, 2019, the last starters movie of the last trilogy was released.
How do these three things relate? They were each a segment of study in our PLP11 2019 Winter Exhibition.
—Content + The Project—
For this project we worked with two competencies:
#1. Historical Perspective
#2. Create
Historical Perspective
For this competency we did a fair bit of content learning about the 1950’s and how it impacted the way we live and write today. An example of a piece of work I did under this competency is my Bio Of A Beat, which was an assignment in which we had to research and create a learning device about a famous 1950’s beat poet and their life.
I created a keynote presentation that explained the life and explorations of one William S Burroughs.
1950’s was a weird time.
Create
The create competency lies over our main project; a book of poetry written by none other than our very selves.
My poetry book is something I’m actually very proud of because I really enjoy writing poetry and getting to express myself in literature. Poetry is very loose too, it’s something you can make completely insane and ridiculous and no one can judge you because “it’s poetry, there are no rules”.
—Exhibition—
In 2017, we held a Star Wars themed Winter Exhibition. This year, the theme returned. Like the Jedi in episode VI (Star Wars Episode VI: Return Of The Jedi). Our class was assigned the Cantina, a bar-like room located on the planet Tatooine, where people go to get drinks and listen to some snazzy music. We created a room like this, with a round bar at the back where we served food and drinks and a stage at the front where we committed the brave act of doing poetry readings.
I read four poems of mine:
Power– a poem about current political issues and the warping of media and minds
Hope– the story of the loss of hope in a persons life and the effects it leaves
Old Radio– a story of memories and the sanctuary they provide
Paradise– a poem speaking towards the fight against mental illness’ and the scars they leave behind
And I participated in a small jazz band performance as well during intermission, where we played a version of the infamous Cantina Band Music and a few other jazzy pieces.
I had doubts about the exhibition. It seemed to me everything was moving in slow-motion while time was moving at a regular speed. Everything was coming up fast and I had no clue how it was going to turn out. It turned out really really good. Everyone worked together to bring everything into place and make the room fit the vibe and look we were going for.
—Conclusion—
Overall I would say the exhibition was a major success. We got the room looking amazing, the performances were very well done by everyone, people showed up and listened, and we were all home before 10pm. A success on all accounts.
A job well done to the teachers, the performers, and thank you to the people who showed up.
Thanks for reading! Drink water, stay safe, and don’t forget to get a good sleep!