POETRY Workshop

This Saturday I'm doing a POETRY WORKSHOP in American Fork at the Arts Council. Going to teach two classes: one on Clustering and the other on Publishing Ideas for Poetry. Should be fun. I love to teach. Can't believe how fast this month as gone and SPRING is definitely here. Here's your opportunity to write a spring poem and publish it in a comment by following my easy instructions below as I hope my audience will next Saturday. I'm making a powerpoint presentation for my publishing class-it's a challenge!

CLUSTERING is about RIGHT BRAIN VS. LEFT BRAIN WRITING- I like to call my RIGHT BRAIN my creative child and my LEFT BRAIN by careful critic. Both are needed for the final product called poetry. If you start out with the careful critic-you won’t get far but will get bogged down in analyzing punctuation, rhythms, and other details until you may lose the inspiration that started the whole effort to write a poem. A better way is to take your original idea and let your creative child PLAY with words using CLUSTERING.

A. THE PROCESS-it’s a lot like brainstorming or hunting for new ideas. First of all, write in your large center circle-the subject of your poem. Say SPRING, then quickly write in some words that come to mind as you contemplate this subject: beginnings, regrowth, starting over, repentance, possibilities are some words that come to my mind. Don’t judge any of these words (this is your RIGHT BRAIN trying to take over) just let the process come freely (using the LEFT BRAIN as a creative child would) and continue until you can’t think of any more words or you get the idea of how to start writing your poem.

B. NEXT STEP-considering the words you came up with begin writing some phrases or more developed ideas down without judging. i.e. Spring is a new beginning/Growing again happens naturally/a time of starting over/ looking at life through new eyes/repenting of old destructive ways/exploring new possibilities are some thoughts that came to me.

C. NOW you can let the LEFT BRAIN take over and do some EDITING if you feel you’ve finished with your clustering and organizing thoughts. At this point you can determine what form you want your finished thoughts to take: free verse, rhymed or some traditional form like sonnet, haiku, etc. I think I’ll try TANKA which is similar to HAIKU but with 5,7,5,7,7 syllables.

SPRING

spring, new beginnings

growing comes naturally

starting over time

repent of destructive ways

explore possibilities

Now it's your turn to try this process, then leave your poem as a comment. You can do it. Celebrate SPRING!