2008 Woodie Awards
Poet Lola Haskins Speaks to Rollins College Students
Florida Poet delights the Rollins masses with her unique brand of verse.
Heather Williams
Issue date: 10/7/05 Section: News
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After a busy day of speaking with one of Dr. Deaver's advanced poetry classes and holding a master class in Woolson House, Haskins was fully energized and on fire for the night's reading. She started off the night casually conversing with the audience, setting a very engaged and relaxed tone. Having worked at the University of Florida for the past twenty-eight years as a computer programmer, one would never expect the vivacity and warmth this woman exudes.
Haskins' orations were more like a performance than a reading. She moved around the room, projecting her voice with varying tones, never using a microphone.
Her body swayed as if the words coming out were lyrics spurring her in motion to dance. Each poem was recited perfectly from memory and flowed so smoothly it was sometimes hard to differentiate between her conversation and her poetry.
Haskins introduced most of her poems with an explanation or story about what they related to, telling the audience that a lot of her poetry was not directly about an event in her life, but indirectly drew from varying experiences or emotions she had felt. Two especially noteworthy poems she performed were about her children, Darcy and Jango. It was easy to feel her passion and love for them when she told about all of their many accomplishments.
Another interesting duo of poems was entitled "Pianissimo" and "Fortissimo," inspired by her lifelong dream of playing the piano, which she tried for the first time at the age of forty. These poems are accompanied by "Bad House," in which Haskins describes how her mother shunned this dream when she was a child. An especially moving poem was written about such tragedies as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, which as Haskins says, "It doesn't end." One of Haskins' most simple poems consists of only four lines and is entitled "Love." She performed this poem in both English and Spanish, of which she is also fluent.
Haskins won the Iowa Poetry Contest in 1992, and has published eight books to date. Thanks for an inspiring night Lola!