Student's poetry on "Psalms" hits the stage

Beginning Friday, November 19, 2010, Calvin sophomore Amanda Armour will present "Poetic Justice: A Play on Words," a hybrid of a rap and poetry reading.

Armour, an interdisciplinary major, wrote the entire script, a series of poems based on the Psalms. Then, she recast the Psalms with an emphasis on themes of urban justice. She spent hundreds of hours working on the staging and rehearsals with the actors. The result is her senior honors project, which will debut at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, November 19, 2010, in Calvin's Chapel.

"I knew when I came to Calvin that I wanted to do something like this, but I wasn't sure I could pull it off, or how I would do it," she said.

Poetic Justice features Saint Edgar, an old man in a nursing home, speaking an adaptation of Psalm 116; Saint Candy, a prostitute whose poem is based on Psalm 22; and Saint Alayna, a female prisoner whose words are a poem based on Psalm 51, to name a few.

"Her [Amanda's] interest and involvement with spoken word poetry took root a few years ago here at Calvin and in the Grand Rapids community," said Linda Naranjo-Huebl, Armour's honors project advisor, "and the call for justice that is central to her poetry comes out of her education and involvement with the communities that are the subject of her creative work."

There are eight scenes in the production, each lasting somewhere between two and seven minutes long, with a final scene that brings all of the characters together on stage for a poem based on Psalm 107.

The production will also be shown at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 20, 2010, in Calvin's Chapel.

For more info, contact English professor Linda Naranjo-Huebl at 616-526-8682.

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Received on Wed Nov 17 13:30:19 2010