Painting pictures with poems

Cleveland Wall read her poems and dramatically 
recited them to the audience.  Cleveland was one of
the runners-up from the recent Robert Fraser open
poetry competition.  


By: Diane Davies-Dixon
Centurion Staff

She painted pictures of beautiful ponds and skimming
rocks through the dramatization of her poems.  Cleveland
wall had her poems memorized as she dramatically recited them to the audience.
Cleveland was one of the
runner’s up from the Robert
Fraser open poetry competition.
“Cleveland was my favorite.
she was dramatic.” said
Eileen Flor, of Richboro, a
workshop student of Dr.
Christopher Bursk’s.  “her
poetry is inspiring and at
times it made me want to
write myself.”
Cleveland has been writing
poetry since she was eightyears old.  although, she has
never won a poetry competition, she did win a worst-sentence contest at a writer’s
conference in Fresno, Ca.
Her prize was a bottle of
Chardonnay. This competition is the closest she has
ever come to winning a poetry competition.  “I am
pretty tickled to be runner up
for this one, as there were so
many good poets vying for
the prize.” Wall said.
“I felt like I connected to her
poetry” said Kate Mccafferty, 23, of Bristol, fine arts
major.  “the way that she
uses her voice is artsy and
she adds humor.”
Christopher Bursk is a constant inspiration for Cleveland.  “as a poet and a
teacher and a mind (he will
hate that i said that, but it is
true).”  Wall said.  “The great
community of poets in Bucks
county is also inspiring.”
“I usually don’t know what
the poem is about until after
I’ve written it.” Wall said.
as far as her famous favorite
poets, she admires Rilke,
Poe, Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth
Bishop and so many others
there isn’t enough room to
list.
“Mostly my train of thought
will be rattling down the
tracks and somehow settle
into a poetry groove.” said
Wall.  That is how she gets
motivated to write.
Her poetry is mostly written
in freestyle and she casually
uses rhyme but she also likes
to play with visual poetry.
This is evident in the way she
had her poems memorized
and used hand gestures to
paint the picture of the story
she was telling in her poems.
She doesn’t try to send a
message through her poetry
because “When I try to do
that I tend to write very bad
poems.”  Wall said.  “for the
alchemy to work, the message has to put itself in the
bottle.”
“I have been to four or five
readings so far.  I liked
Cleveland’s performance.”
said Kyle Knoblauch, 22, of
Bristol.
the wordsmiths series on
march 30 was held in the Orangery where the runners up
Laura Holloway, Bernadette
McBride and Cleveland Wall
read their poetry along with
the winner of the 2012
Robert Fraser Poetry competition, Janet Poland and April
Lindner the Robert Fraser
distinguished visiting Poet
who was the judge of the
competition.
the orangery was filled window to window with students, faculty and staff.
some of them are aspiring
poets themselves.  Advice
from Janet Poland “living
alert and attentive, poems
will come to you.”  what she
means is to see things for
what they really are.  it will
bring out the poet in you.