Songlines, Scripps College’s unique performance series of eclectic poetry and music by Southern California artists, will host a performance by Los Angeles local poet Leslie Monsour accompanied by the Concordia String Quartet on Wednesday, March 5, at 7:30 p.m. in the Hampton Room of the Malott Commons. The performance, “Otherwise We Fall Into Prose: An Evening of Measured Verse,” and reception immediately following are free and open to the public; seating is limited and will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. SONGLINES is sponsored through the Alexa Fullerton Hampton Speaker Series at Scripps College; for more information, please call the Malott Commons Office at (909) 607-8508.
Leslie Monsour was born in Hollywood, California, but grew up in Mexico City, Chicago, and Panama. A frequent guest speaker at conferences, colleges, and museums nationwide, Monsour has earned numerous honors and awards for her work from literary institutions such as the Arroyo Arts Collective, the Santa Monica Arts Council, and the Pennsylvania Poetry Society, and she is a past recipient of a John Dupree scholarship to the Frost Place in New Hampshire. Monsour has been featured in prestigious poetry journals including Poetry, The Formalist, and The Dark Horse, among others. Her work also appears in anthologies including A Formal Feeling Comes and Visiting Emil: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Emily Dickinson, and collections of her poems have been published by Robert L. Barth and the Aralia Press.
Monsour’s compositions primarily employ traditional measures, meter, and rhyme—an approach that distinguishes her work from other Los Angeles poets, who tend toward the non-traditional free-form.
According to Monsour: “Meter is a way to keep yourself conscious of every word you write. It’s also very liberating to allow language to flow across its natural units of measure and determine line endings according to a consistent count, rather than struggle with the arbitrary whims of free verse… First and foremost, I believe a poem should make sense in everyday language. Robert Frost said, “I prefer to be understood.” That’s how I feel. I often read free verse poems that move me very deeply. But I can’t write that way anymore. When I shuffle the deck, I like the way it feels to settle the cards into place, tapping the edges until they line up smoothly. How else can you deal them round the table? I suppose, you can deal from a disheveled deck if you want to, some do, and still deal some mighty fine hands. I prefer to do it from a flush deck. It’s easier.”
“Frost says a poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom,” she adds. “I like to think that’s what I strive for. I hope I sometimes succeed.”
In addition to her career as a poet and educator, Monsour has worked as a reference librarian at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California; as a news reporter for Pacifica Radio; and as a research consultant for documentary film production companies.
The Concordia String Quartet—a blend of violins, viola, and cello—will accompany Monsour’s poetry reading. The Quartet is comprised of four current students at The Claremont Colleges: Leslie Chizu Morihara from Scripps College; Aurora Burd from Harvey Mudd College; and Aleen Lee and Gene Lee, both from Claremont McKenna College.
SONGLINES is made possible through the Alexa Fullerton Hampton Speaker Series, a fund established by the generous bequest of Alexa Fullerton Hampton, Scripps College Class of 1942.