photo by Reina Santa Cruz
Assistant Professor of English Steve Westbrook has been working for the past three years on a new form of poetry called “transmogrified poetry,” containing two text from its original author and another speaker. The poetry, he says, is a response to early 19th Century poems. Westbrook has written about 10 of these poems. Freshman Melanie Lacy is one of Westbrook’s students in English 110.
During a Wednesday night Language of Art class, Steve Westbrook can be observed listening intently to his students as they describe the fundamentals of semiotics.
Once a student finishes outlining the assigned reading and what it meant to them, the 31-year-old English professor’s eyes often light up as he cracks his childlike smile of approval.
The striking thing about him as he interacts with the students is his sincerity. It is evident in his bohemian swagger, as is his propensity for the beautiful and absurd. The dark wavy hair, three day stubble, thick-rimmed glasses and vintage style shirt with large embroidered flowers on the collar give him away, almost immediately, as a first class beatnik.
But above all else, Westbrook is an innovative poet who finds inspiration in the humor of ridiculous things that people say everyday.
“I love how that misplaced adjective is representative of the misplaced values of the current U.S. society,” Westbrook said of this quote:
“It is a sad day for myself, my family and my beloved company,” which Martha Stewart spoke upon losing her legal battle.
This is reflective of much of Westbrook’s poetry; a social commentary that points out our collective idiosyncrasies. Like one could imagine, he is not satisfied to tread where so many have before. Instead, Westbrook is exploring a frontier all his own transmogrified poetry.
Transmogrified poetry consists of two texts. One is appropriated from another author or speaker. The other is an entirely new poem that is written so it speaks to the first.
These two texts are then set so their syntaxes intertwine in a way that allows the reader to read each separately, as well as together, creating new meanings within the text.
“Many people are engaged in rewriting (but) I don’t know of anyone who is using this exact form in the way that I have set it up,” Westbrook said. “The fun stuff is to use ‘found’ quotes and rework them and their meanings in the context of a new poem.”
The form started to come together while Westbrook was writing his dissertation at the State University of New York at Albany.
He was, at the same time, reading Rob Pope’s “Textual Intervention” and trying to rewire something in his apartment, which led him to research electricity.
This research yielded a great deal of documentation on the history of electricity, which Westbrook utilized in the creation of his new style.
“The concept of writing back intrigued me, especially from both the creative and argumentative position,” Westbrook said. “I started appropriating series of text and the form started to develop.”
There are other areas of poetry that Westbrook is delving into, which explore non-traditional mediums. This is the case with his poetry box.
Titled “The Smiths and I: 1946, 1977, 1989, 2004,” the poetry box deploys an old clock, tree pods, an old photo, Smiths lyrics printed on layers of transparencies, a mirror and a miniature eye chart in a way that makes the viewer/reader a part of the work.
Westbrook explained that he took his cue to create the poetry box from the surrealist boxes that Joseph Cornell made during the first half of the 21st century.
“Creative writing is in a weird place,” Westbrook said. “It’s no longer bound to the page.”
This has freed poets like Westbrook to explore areas of writing that were previously inconceivable; and new frontiers in writing mean new ways for writers to impact the reader.
“I like to manipulate readers emotionally and intellectually,” Westbrook said, “prompt them to re-examine what they’ve just read and, perhaps, reexamine the ideological implications of their behaviors.
Like a good French film, I like to end with a reminder of human suffering, and, like a good Zen koan, I like to combine suffering with unending, unsolvable farce. ‘If you see the Buddha in the road, laugh in his face!’”
Westbrook’s fascination with language began at a San Luis Obispo high school. A self-described member of the freaks and geeks group, he began writing poetry during his junior year as a way of expressing his political and social views.
“I went to high school during the first Gulf War, and they had these mandatory pep rallies,” Westbrook said. “In protest of the war, my friends and I didn’t stand during the Pledge of Allegiance. The other kids started chanting ‘Stand up faggots!’
That sort of homophobia and disrespect toward individuality led me to seek a venue for discussing those subjects.
“It ended up being poetry. Since then, I’ve retained the concerns, but my writing has become much more public.”
But there is more to Westbrook than poetry.
He is also a professor, a job that lands him in the classroom for 12 hours a week, not mentioning the time he must devote to his other university duties.
Westbrook is aware of the impact that teachers can have on students.
“I don’t want my students to think outside of the box; I want them to destroy the box, the concept of the box, and the horrible cliché in which the word ‘box’ finds itself. I want my students to be critical, creative, and conscientious. And I really do want them to change the world. How’s that for cliché? But I mean it.”
Students really do pick up on a professor’s sincere desire to see them succeed.
“There’s not much difference between Steve the teacher and Steve the guy,” said philosophy major Derek Keepers. “He is very much like a friend. You can have the same kind of conversation inside of class as you could outside.”
Westbrook has also influenced his colleagues as well.
“(Westbrook is) unintentionally forcing me to concentrate on the basics of semiotic theory in the visual arts,” Said Associate Professor of Art History Andres Zervigon, who team teaches the University of La Verne’s Wednesday night Language of Art class with
Westbrook. “I often spend most my time talking through the art works but because we’re dealing with two media (art and literature), I’m spending far more time on the ideas that generate the analysis and/or the art.”
While Westbrook is leading his students into battle against the cliché and causing colleagues to reexamine their fields, he also is working on a manuscript titled Static, which will be a print book of poetry.
After he finishes that, he wants to explore more mixed media and multimedia poetics.
“I want, above all, to create work that has a sense of humor and is pleasurable for the reader and at the same time offers social and political commentary.”
John Patrick can be reached at jpatrick@ulv.edu.