What is poetry for? Why do people write it?
- Writing poetry is a way of expressing ideas and emotions, or of recording a special event. The purpose may be to communicate with other people, but sometimes it is a way of sorting out thoughts
- Although the subject matter is important in a poem, poetry has a special quality that enables atmosphere and mood to be fully expressed…when you ask yourself what a poem is about, you should probe beyond the obvious story and ask further questions about the poet’s feelings and your response to the poem (why do I like the poem?).
Writing Poetry
Asking you to just jump in a write a poem might feel to you like asking you to build a house having never held a hammer. So we're going to ease into it here.
Novelist and playwright Cormac McCarthy has said this about writing:
Asking you to just jump in a write a poem might feel to you like asking you to build a house having never held a hammer. So we're going to ease into it here.
- Keep an open mind.
- Above all, please enjoy yourself! Writing poetry can be hard, but it can also be the most fun you have in a day.
Novelist and playwright Cormac McCarthy has said this about writing:
"My perfect day is sitting in a room with some blank paper. That's heaven. That's gold and anything else is just a waste of time."
Cormac McCarthy
Poetry Activity #2 : Wordpool
**To note, all the writing you do here is not to be handed-in for marking until you submit your collection of polished poems at the end of this unit.
We're going to create a collection of words. No rules apply here. We're creating what poet Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge calls a wordpool.
**To note, all the writing you do here is not to be handed-in for marking until you submit your collection of polished poems at the end of this unit.
We're going to create a collection of words. No rules apply here. We're creating what poet Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge calls a wordpool.
So, begin. Just jump right into it, jotting down any old words at all that you think of, that have value to you one way or another, either in meaning or sound or the way they look.
Another way to do this, which leads to different results, is to begin from a word, or a prompt. Put the word/prompt you choose in the middle of the page, and circle it. Then, without too much thinking, write words that you associate with the central word. This is known as mind-mapping, and it can generate lots of images and ideas that you didn't know you had in you.
Try that now, if it appeals to you. Often beginning with a colour can work well. And you don't have to limit yourself to one word "answers" to the central word. You can jot down a few words, or a phrase, maybe a memory or a name of someone you know that you associate with the seed word.
Another way to do this, which leads to different results, is to begin from a word, or a prompt. Put the word/prompt you choose in the middle of the page, and circle it. Then, without too much thinking, write words that you associate with the central word. This is known as mind-mapping, and it can generate lots of images and ideas that you didn't know you had in you.
Try that now, if it appeals to you. Often beginning with a colour can work well. And you don't have to limit yourself to one word "answers" to the central word. You can jot down a few words, or a phrase, maybe a memory or a name of someone you know that you associate with the seed word.
Words stand for feelings, ideas, mountains, bees
Listen to the sound of words. I line up words I like
to hear, nasturtiums buzz blue grass catnip catalpa catalog."
p. 10 Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words
Next, place your words in a visual format, a word cloud, and add them to your website (if you are unable to embed your word picture, use your "Snipping Tool" on your computer to copy the image and paste it into your website.
For a basic word picture try Wordle. If you want some words to stand out, type them two or three times, to make the word appear bigger. If you want an even more creative word cloud, try out Tagxedo. The following is a Wordle using the prompt TEXTURE
For a basic word picture try Wordle. If you want some words to stand out, type them two or three times, to make the word appear bigger. If you want an even more creative word cloud, try out Tagxedo. The following is a Wordle using the prompt TEXTURE
Why did we do this? To play around with language. And, in Wooldridge's words:
" the rhythm, the music in the words, the circle of voices around the room, the associations, the well of minds casting out words like water in a fountain, words next to words in new ways and the lack of them spreading down and across the page takes us to the state of mind poems come from."
It will also help us to use words in different ways, to "treat words as if they were paint, clay or wood; allow words to be a physical material to shape, mold, chisel and blend"
(John Fox, from Poetic Medicine)
" the rhythm, the music in the words, the circle of voices around the room, the associations, the well of minds casting out words like water in a fountain, words next to words in new ways and the lack of them spreading down and across the page takes us to the state of mind poems come from."
It will also help us to use words in different ways, to "treat words as if they were paint, clay or wood; allow words to be a physical material to shape, mold, chisel and blend"
(John Fox, from Poetic Medicine)
I write entirely to find out what I am thinking, what I am
looking at, what I see and what it means.
What I want and what I fear.
--Joan Didion
When you are writing poetry, set aside all those preconceived notions about what you're going to create, of what you want to accomplish. You are going to begin writing now with no direction, with no plan, other than to put words down on paper. This is what many writers do, to get themselves warmed up, or to generate material, or to get themselves "unstuck." Facing that blank page can be a perfect recipe for setting up writers' block. (Hemingway said a blank sheet of paper was the most terrifying thing he'd ever seen.)
Throughout this unit, we will be doing many exercises together, but beginning with one that is just about getting words out and onto the page. Natalie Goldberg popularized this technique called freewriting, which has been around for many years. Others call it stream-of-consciousness writing, because it tends to rush out of your brain like water.
Why do we do these exercises before writing poetry? Aside from simply getting you to write, they allow you to get yourself out of the way a little more than when you sit down and tell yourself to write a poem.
Poetry Activity #3: Word Association Free Write
Instructions
- Take a look at what you've generated with either the wordpool exercise
- Take a pen or marker of a different colour and circle things that jump out at you as having more interest, images or memories that make you a little more excited about them.
- Then, take one of these words or phrases and put it at the top of the page, and begin to write whatever comes into your mind. Without stopping. Without editing, or worrying about what it might sound like. You are free, as Goldberg says in her rules of writing practice, to write the worst junk in the world. Write for ten minutes.
If that's not enough, why not give this site a try: Dr. Wicked's Write or Die site. When you stop typing, the site makes it worth your while to keep going, in the form of gentle "torture" — nasty colours, awful sounds, etc. You will want to keep those fingers moving!- Take a pen or marker of a different colour and circle things that jump out at you as having more interest, images or memories that make you a little more excited about them.
Poetry Activity #4: Freewriting
Here's another freewriting exercise to generate a first draft, but with a more poetic bent.
Instructions
Here's another freewriting exercise to generate a first draft, but with a more poetic bent.
Instructions
- Listen this poem by Mary Oliver, called Wild Geese (audio below)
- Then, take a word or phrase from "Wild Geese" and copy it at the top of your page. After that, just begin to write things down; your first thoughts, uncensored. Go for at least ten minutes.
If the audio above doesn't work: "Wild Geese" Audio