Woodland Hills High School Library was thrilled to welcome Srikanth Reddy to the high school for a Woodland Hills Interaction Series event on Tuesday afternoon to speak with students in Ms. Curtin's and Mr. Burness classes to talk about poetry.
Mr. Reddy is an accomplished writer, editor, and scholar who has published multiple volumes of poetry. He has been awarded fellowships through the National Endowment of the Arts and the Guggenheim, and his most recent collection of poetry, "Underworld Lit," was named a finalist for the Griffin International Poetry Prize.
Outside of poetry, his literary criticism has been published in the New York Times, PEN America, and various other publications. He currently serves as the Poetry Editor for the Paris Review and he is a professor at the University of Chicago.
While with the students, Mr. Reddy worked with them on a couple of writing exercises to help them understand that everyone can be a poet. They read a poem and analyzed not only how it made them feel, but the various pieces of imagery within the poem. Another exercise encouraged them to think of abstract questions - What is love? What is fear? - and then think of a series of descriptive images that paired objects together. The students then found ways to pair the two lists.
Mr. Reddy also answered questions from the students, including what inspires him to write. His answer was that the students shouldn't just wait for inspiration to strike - they should seek it through experiencing life, reading as much as possible, and reflecting on it all.
His visit was made possible thanks to a partnership with the International Poetry Forum.