Aim: What creative approaches can be taken to find ideas for writing poetry?
Today’s “Do Now” was to have a class discussion about what we each do in our free time. I learned a lot of interesting things about my classmates, and learned that more people than I expected were into sports.
After the Do Now, we moved onto a “Spirit Reading” from Susan Wooldridge, a poem about where she finds her inspiration. After reading, we watched Daniel Radcliffe rap “Alphabet Aerobics” surprisingly well. Like, really well. That was impressive.
After that, we were sent into breakout rooms with our groups with a challenge: how many synonyms with “to walk or move” can you find for each letter of the alphabet? My team found twenty-two words and placed first, which was pretty cool! The only letters for which we couldn’t find a synonym were O, Q, X, and Y. I’d be surprised if there even was a synonym starting with X or Y.
Once we ran out of time for our team activity, we were all sent back to the main room to count our words (which is when, as I said before, we learned that we won!). After our glorious victory, we moved into another spirit reading about poetic inspiration. While the first spirit reading was more about inspiration from words, this one was about taking inspiration from images and feelings. It was pretty interesting.
And then back to breakout rooms! Our assignment this time was to choose a picture from a list of ten as a group and each write about how it made us feel. My group chose a picture of an empty, bright amusement park at night. The image felt… quiet. Unsettling. After analyzing the picture, we had a second question about where we could personally find inspiration. I think that inspiration can be anywhere, it just depends on how hard you look and with what perspective you approach something.
Finally, we went back to the main room; discussed our answers, and said our goodbyes until our class would meet again in three days.
After class had ended, I realized that I had actually learned a great deal about inspiration. I suppose I never really thought about it before this. Sometimes people see things and they think, “Maybe I should make what I’m feeling here last longer.” And then they make a piece of art, or a poem, or anything of that sort. But I learned that it’s a little more specific than that. Oftentimes, the easiest inspiration to keep is some that comes from a few words or an image.
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