The Cosmic Streams and Rhythms

“Power lies in understanding that all of life is a unified whole; that human kind is part of nature which is part of the cosmic streams and rhythms. Survival and growth accrue from suspending personal ego boundaries by noticing and resonating with on-going harmonies, by accepting insights from the well-springs of ‘higher consciousness’ or ‘spiritual’ sources.” - Dr. Rachel Lauer, Director of the Strauss Thinking and Learning Center at Pace University.

The power of the Streams anthologies was to reach out to, and bring together, the wide range of students attending school in a variety of settings: prisons, GED programs, New Vision schools, Outreach programs, vocational training sites, homeless shelters, college preps, pregnant and parenting programs, literacy centers, group homes, service learning sites, ESL programs, community centers, hospital sites, and theater schools.

A unifying aesthetic arose from our work with Dr. Lauer and General Semantics which we called 7 Heuristic Elements of Poetry. The Elements presented a means to assess all writing, maintain a constructivist approach to expressive writing, and teach about historic developments in literary criticism.

Beginning with Streams 9, the editorial choices and organization of anthologies were influenced by a progression through 7 Heuristic Elements of Poetry. The Elements were paired to allow for 3 sections with the final element (publication) embodied by the book itself.

The first section, Music and Memory (for mimesis) contained poems that addressed music as a theme, were distinguished by a rhythmic pattern, and imitated or reconstructed reality from memory.

Students imitated vernacular. They spoke or wrote in the voice of another. They verbally constructed a “faithful reproduction.” Mimesis in education would be “learning by rote.” Mimetic poetry manifests the memorable properties of things, animals and people.

Fatima Coleman, in her poem “Uncle”, wrote:

I will never forget his silver gray hair,
Always neatly combed in place.
There were three beautiful generations
All over his precious face.
He was so sweet and kind, nice and wise.
He was the greatest.
I was a young girl in my early teens, he said,
“Now baby listen. Things aren’t always the way they seem.”

He would always sing the same song to me.
He would always say,
“Take your time, young girl. Don’t you rush to get old.
Take it in your stride, baby. Just live your life.”
(excerpted from page 39)

Streams 9