Aim: What creative approaches can be taken to find ideas for writing poetry?
Do Now: The start of today’s lesson was a class discussion on what the class likes to do during their free time. Everyone has their own hobbies and fields of interest that fulfill their unmet needs and make them feel special or merely just a way to destress after a long day of work.
The class discussion started off with Mariah, who likes to watch Netflix and play video games, then I added on that I liked to stay in the dark scrolling through my phone, others contributed with their hobbies of listening to music or sports as well. The class discussion showed that there were common hobbies among many of us﹣ gaming or watching television. This class discussion was a great way to guide us through today’s lesson as it is an example of a source of inspiration for writing poetry. The things we enjoy doing and the feelings it evokes can be expressed through many combinations of words.
SPIRIT READING:
After the do now class discussion, we read about collecting words and creating a wordpool from “Poemcrazy” by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge﹣a teacher of creative writing that shows her observant nature to the world around her, she is inspired in her writing by everyday events and shares her stories in a distinctive writing style.
The purpose of this reading was to show that there was no limitation on words that can be used in poetry, one can get inspiration from many different cultures and practically anything from one’s surroundings. Words can also be played around to make one’s poetry unique.
This is something that we kept in mind as we watched: Daniel Radcliffe Raps Blackalicious' "Alphabet Aerobics"
“Alphabet Aerobics” is a tongue-twisting song by Blackalicious, the lyrics are written so that every couplet is filled with words starting with a specific letter. Every two lines move to the next letter of the alphabet, and towards the end, the words become nearly incomprehensible. This is the use of the literary device﹣alliteration.
After taking a closer look at the contents of this song, one can definitely see that the lyrics were written from a word pool as it displays a compilation of words that might not have any correlation to each other but can be put together to create a storyline, in this case, the storyline would be being on top of others or doing something the best.
TEAMWORK:
Therefore, it only made sense for us to create our word pool. The challenge was to come up with words that are synonyms of "to walk or move” or words that come to our mind when we think about moving that corresponds to each letter of the alphabet in five minutes.
My group was able to collectively work together and come up with 25 words.
This task showed that it really isn’t all that hard to come up with words that can eventually provoke many wonderful ideas when writing.
SPIRIT READING:
Following, our next task was reading and annotating anything that sticks out to us shown below:
… Image is the root word of imagination. It’s from Latin imago, “picture,” how you see things. Images carry feelings. Saying, “I’m angry,” or “I’m sad,” has little impact. Creating images, I can make you feel how I feel.
When I read the words of a young student named Cari—“I’m a rose in the shape of a heart / with nineteen days of nothing / but the pouncing of shoes on my dead petals”—I experience desperation through her image. Cari doesn’t even have to name the feeling—nineteen days, a pale green sky, a pouch of seed held against a sower’s heart.
Writing poems using images can create an experience allowing others to feel what we feel. Perhaps more important, poems can put us in touch with our own often buried or unexpected feelings.
Shoua discovered her frustration by using the image of a man shooting pool,
I hear bang, click, shoosh
feeling like the white ball
that does all the work.
Tori used images from a landscape to indicate hopelessness,
the clouds collapsed,
they’re touching the ground
trying to come alive,
but they can’t.
Sometimes word tickets magically fit with the images in the paintings. One of Tori’s words was jingle. It helped her convey her developing feeling of hope,
the glowing water shows shadow
till we all hear
the jingle of dawn.
Images we create in our poem can not only help us discover our feelings, but can help us begin to
transform them.
What one can obtain from this reading is that describing feelings with imagery can be more powerful than directly expressing one’s feelings like “I’m sad” but if one expresses their sadness by saying “everybody has things they wish not to recall, into each life rain must fall” it feels deeper and readers can vividly imagine how the readers might feel. The example I included also uses nature as an analogy to bad events in life, rain may not be something everyone will be pleased with but one cannot control when it comes or when it doesn’t come to make the day feel a lot darker and sad. Above, Susan is telling us that creating images in poems can even help us, the writers, to better discover our feelings, which is something that really stood out to me. Something else that really stood out to me was the words of Cari, a young student; “I’m a rose in the shape of a heart / with nineteen days of nothing / but the pouncing of shoes on my dead petals”. She uses the image of a rose, or dead rose, to communicate the desperation inside of her. The dead petals felt really deep to me, as a reader, as I connected it back to my personal experiences and thought it meant a dead soul.
CONNECTIONS:
Creating images in poetry connects back to the idea of “showing not telling”...
This is an example of how showing (creating images) better communicates ideas to readers. Showing draws readers into the narrative with truly immersive descriptions, which then engages the readers. These descriptions can also leave things for the reader to interpret, especially in poems. Just by reading the “tell” example, I, as a reader, practically feel nothing but when I read the “show” example, I felt shivers go down my spine and picture myself in that situation and how my anxiety will rise.
To fix “telling”, one can pick out words that are directly expressing an action or feeling and find synonyms or come up with words or even sound effects that that specific word sparks.
APPLICATION OF WORD POOL:
The poem below is an example of the result of a word pool:
stuck in the lost depths
of the autumn moonlight,
the whimsical trees sing
their song of the night.
out by the river,
fluttering lilacs dance
until the wild dawn appears
above the ocean's horizon.
cars flying by
on the soaring roads,
hoping to exist carefree
like the silent mountains.
the river of the north
casts a shadow of the
moon drops and their
colorless reflections.
storm season approaching,
the wind dust will cast away
a spell on the nighttime waves.
breathing colors,
like the wallflower blossoms
as they live in wanderlust.
it seems to be a dark world,
yet this universe is pure
when it is suddenly compared
to the world outside our minds.
This poem was published by Becky S in 2013, the bolded words represent the words that were in their word pool. It appears to be that the words in the word pool had a common theme, nature. The words were then used to describe the beauty of nature and send a message that the actual nature of our universe is pure, which is a direct contrast of how many humans might view this world, influenced by many social problems ﹣war, pollution, homelessness, etc.
TEAMWORK:
The images below were given to us.
Each team had to agree on and choose 1 of the images above and try to write a description that captures the essence of the image and how we feel about it. My group decided on the amusement park picture, which was the one that stuck out to me the most as it evokes feelings of liveliness as it is seen brightly lit against the face of dusk. I can picture the excited kids and adults, who are there during their escape from the real world, the feeling of thrill after a heart-stopping drop from the peak of a ride. The nostalgia brings back from childhood, remembering how I used to long to experience the big kid rides but now that I am a “big kid”, life doesn’t create as much free time and we have all been trapped at home for over a year, the picture brings about a strong desire to make my way to the amusement park and feel alive again. When other groups shared their responses, a commonality appeared; the amusement park/carousel picture stuck out the most to the class and many of us agreed that that was because it brought back nostalgia of childhood.
Responses from Peers:
Team 1 (Alexander): We chose the amusement park picture because the lights contrasted the
dark colors of the night which invoke a feeling of liveliness, the image also invokes a strong
nostalgic feeling in me and brings me back to the time where I was there screaming, yelling,
and having fun with my friends.
Team 2 (Angel): We chose the amusement park picture because we felt that the picture brought
back memories and excitement.
Team 3 (Kenneth): We chose the puppies because it made us feel happy and excited.
Team 5 (Edwin): We chose the cupcake image because when we looked at the image, it made
us feel hungry.
Team 6 (Daniel P): We also chose the carousel because it invoked us with a feeling of
excitement and adrenaline.
****
Then, the next task was to have a group discussion about where we can get creative inspiration from that we can use to create our own form of poetry. My group talked about getting inspired by one’s surroundings, such as nature and the people around us. For example, Allison talked about hanging out with her cousins, which could then lead her to write a poem about the fun memories and bonds they have or even how they inspire her. For me, personally, I can get creative inspiration from my personal thoughts that sit so deep within me, all the weights I carry on my shoulders, and the harsh life lessons I had to learn﹣because that’s the reality of life. Communicating one’s thoughts directly to others can be challenging, especially living in a first-generation immigrant household that doesn’t necessarily understand mental health and the realities teenagers/ young adults face. However, writing those feelings as a poem by creating many images would be a lot easier.
HOMEWORK:
The homework assignment was to create a pool of words and images that will guide us through poem writing, which also allows us to show our understanding of today’s lesson. It doesn’t always have to be words, sometimes pictures will evoke more ideas as there is a saying “pictures are worth a thousand words”.
This is my personal pool of images I’ve created that pertains to me, each of these images has a meaning to me, as others may not be able to decipher some of them or if they are, only I know the deep meanings. Specifically, the image with the red lanterns is about how I’ve overcome my desires of assimilating into the “American lifestyle” and grown to love my culture and appreciate who I am.
REFLECTION:
Today’s lesson allowed me to further understand why some people see poems as an outlet to express themselves; there is practically no limit to what can be written about and what ideas arise to create images of those ideas. It also taught me to appreciate poems more, in the past when I hear about writing poems, I used to dread it since I had no idea what is “appropriate” to write about but now after today, I have a whole pool of images and words that I can get inspiration from so I have an idea of what I can write about now for the poem project. I learned that words are powerful and recording allows for new ideas to develop and flourish from something as simple as a sentence to something as intricate as a poem, experimenting with words that create different effects, such as sound effects, are something I look forward to experimenting with as well. The most important thing I learned today was that anyone can get inspiration from anywhere, referring back to the do now, I talked about how I liked to be alone in the dark during my free time and in my poem, I can talk about why I enjoy being in the dark and how I view it as an escape from the noisy world. Using descriptive words to create images will help me further develop my poem writing and also allow the readers to further understand the ideas expressed and imagine them as well. Creating word pools is a great way to guide one’s writing, and one doesn’t need to abandon it after finishing a certain piece of work, additions to the word and/or image pool can be continued as we all experience new life events, get through hardships, or just simply come up with an idea in the spur of the moment. From now on, if I ever think of an idea that I think can be expanded further, I will add it to my word pool and I can use it for works further than the poem project.
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