Teacher’s Poem Chosen as Part of New York Art Show

Alexandra Mattraw Rosenboom, an award-winning poetess and Harker English teacher, has a Harker-inspired poem included in “Black and White,” the summer 2011 exhibition of New York’s Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition. The show, which opened July 16, is in a huge Civil War-era coffee warehouse, and Rosenboom’s poem, “Inside the Construction: The Brain,” is mounted and displayed at the entrance. “The poem was inspired by notes I took during our February faculty retreat,” said Rosenboom. The guest speaker at the retreat was a neuroscientist who discussed the way we develop thoughts. “Because my poem explores how humans think in black and white before our brain processes things in color, it worked quite well with the show’s theme,” she said. The show will run on weekends until Aug. 21. In addition, Rosenboom has two poems in the latest number of American Letters & Commentary, issue 22. More information on Rosenboom and her poetry can be found at her website.

Excerpt from “Inside the Construction: The Brain” by Alexandra Mattraw Rosenboom:
“… Survival in context as the reason for memory, I mistake your finger for mine. The fire hydrant for fire. Because periphery only believes in movement, city snow ticks us through signaled streets. Power lines thicken tulle fog. Colors appear but we only see in black and white first : The perfidy of an oil blackened road ….”